The World's Most Dangerous Approach - Paro, Bhutan

Video Description

Join me on a flight with Bhutan Airlines (Tashi Air) A319 from Kathmandu to Paro, Bhutan. Paro Airport is situated in between mountains and valleys at 7,332 ft above sea level. The approach is well considered as one of the most dangerous and most spectacular in the world. Check out the amazing landing footage. In addition, the flight also flew across many top 10 mountains in the world include Mt Everest. ------- Join us for a spectacular and thrilling, up close, documentary look at the world’s most dangerous airport landing at Paro airport in Bhutan. Make sure you watch all the way to the end of the video to catch the sped up, bird’s eye view of the fabulous and graceful twisting and turning of the aeroplane on its approach to the landing strip of Paro airport, the sole international airport of Bhutan located six kilometres from Paro in a very deep valley on the bank of the river Paro Chhu, and how the runway suddenly appears from nowhere. It takes a real aviation expert and a very steady hand to make a safe landing at Paro airport! In this video, we fly from Kathmandu airport in Nepal to Paro airport in Bhutan using Bhutan airlines. After a brief look inside Kathmandu airport’s executive airport lounge, we board our flight and meet the chief pilot of Bhutan airlines – we’re in safe hands; only a handful of trained captains are qualified and certified to land at Paro airport and it takes a minimum of eight to ten years of intensive training to become a captain. We examine the runway at Kathmandu airport which is very bumpy and, interestingly, has no taxiways to the main runway, necessitating the use of some tricky manoeuvres and, needless to say, keen attention paid to air traffic control. The flight is only forty minutes long but the flight is still packed with events and sights. In the video, we see most of the top ten highest mountains in the world within the Himalayas including Mount Makalu, Mount Lhotse and the tallest of all, Mount Everest. We also see the mountains of Bhutan within the Himalayan mountain range including Jomolhari and Jitchu Drake. The pictures of the snow capped mountains of the Himalayas are breath taking and we hear the captain’s opinions of why he thinks there is less snow now than there was in previous years. We also enjoy lunch with champagne on board and we enjoy sharing a specially made cake with the Bhutan airlines crew to celebrate our travelling with them to the legendary Paro airport of Bhutan. Paro airport is surrounded by mountains as high as 5500 metres and only has a single runway of length 1964 metres. Its single terminal was constructed in 1999 and it is a hub for two airlines: Bhutan airlines and Druk Air. Paro airport is such a difficult airport to land in that it can only be used in visual meteorological conditions and operational hours are restricted to daylight hours between sunrise and sunset. You really won’t want to miss this video focusing on the world’s most challenging airport to land at. Let us know in the comments what you thought of the scenery and the whole experience and, as always, thanks for watching!