Comment by robga | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robga | Hacker News Reader

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Interesting that they call Lajes a “military airfield”. On the Azorean island of Terceira, Lajes (TER) is a mixed use airfield that is the commercial landing strip of the island since the 1930s, as well as having a multi-national military base on the other side since the 1940s. There is a picture in the story.

The NTSB report called it a military airbase, and other reports say “Military air traffic controllers guided the aircraft”. Civilian aircraft can use the military side with a permit.

Plenty more info on the air field at https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Lajes_Field

Lajes’s other claim to fame is that Bush and Blair met there just days before the Iraq invasion to hammer out whatever deal they thought had to be dealt.

The tale of the stricken aircraft was fascinating. I’ve always wondered, over the decades as I’ve flown slight doglegs over Earth’s oceans, if the strategy to route over remote airfields in case of emergency has ever had a “cost” estimated. How many hours and gallons of fuel has been spent for this safety blanket? The infrastructural insurance spent to prevent lives lost in air travel appears to be much higher than lives on road travel. Could it be that the insurance is for the aircraft, not the lives? Hmm.

The island, and the others of the Azores, are a wonderful place to visit by the way.

One of the coolest emergency airfields I can think of is, literally, Uruguay Route 9, along the coast of the country, where a 2-lane highway becomes an enormous runway that you continue driving along. I don't know if there were any famous landings there; I heard it's only used rarely by the Presidential jet.

Here's where it is: https://goo.gl/maps/fpwxuPzGVDtDEKmB8

and what it looks like when you drive on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C5LSrRkFyU

Not that uncommon. The Czech motorway D1 can be converted to a military airstrip here: https://www.google.com/maps/@49.3870307,15.9211894,289m/data...

See where the grass divider ends, and gets replaced by a jersey barrier for 2 km? That part is the runway - it would require some hours of preparation before it would be usable, it's not quite "declare mayday and dump the plane there."

ah, that's very cool. Makes me think of all kinds of NATO-level shit that's strewn around the world waiting to be uncovered ;)

The thing with the road in Uruguay is that as you're driving, there's basically a yellow sign with a picture of an airplane and an arrow pointing up, and you're like "what the fuck did that mean?" And then suddenly you understand exactly what it meant because you're driving on a fucking runway...

The Czech one is more of a Warsaw-Pact-level shit. :-) Here is a (originally secret) documentary video about MiG-21 exercise on the highway (in Czech, obviously): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDoZGoaG9_w

Sweden had/has roads onthe middle of nowhere/forest that has more free space on the sides and at each end of particularly strate and flat stretches, there are oversized parking spots. Supposedly so fighter planes could refuse and rearm from mobile crews

Finland has plenty of those too. Here's a video of an F-18 doing a landing and takeoff from such a stretch of road during some exercise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj_eJxy8ojk

The ones I've been on weren't signposted at all. You're just on a road, and suddenly the road is completely straight and very wide, and 3km later it's back to normal, and there's nothing visible nearby.

I googled and found a list on https://www.mil-airfields.de/se/list.htm but IIRC there must be something further northwest, not on the list.

As in, "give way to aircraft from above" :D

Wrong spot, I'm pretty sure youre thinking of Vyškov https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2936699,17.0223332,1311m/dat...

And I'm absolutely sure I wasn't: two different spots, both near military airbases, this one is somewhat longer than the Vyškov one. Personally drove on both of them, many times. Can't find an English source though: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leti%C5%A1t%C4%9B_M%C4%9B%C5%9...

Hmmm is that the one with the windmill rest stop thingy nearby?

Not aware of a windmill. The one I originally referenced has a McDonalds these days :D

Hah! I was driving down this route a few years back when I suddenly found myself on an airstrip along with all the other traffic. It was particularly bizarre given that I’d just driven down from tacuarembo to punta del Diablo on largely unpaved roads.

That said, it’s not the first road doubling up as a landing strip I’ve found myself on - there’s a stretch of the main road between Donetsk and Mariupol that was, in soviet times, used as an emergency field for strategic bombers. It’s this relatively quiet provincial highway that suddenly turns ridiculously wide, and goes dead straight and level for what feels like an eternity - 11km looking at google.

Oh, and RAF manston used to have a level crossing across a taxiway.

That’s quite a variety of locales to find yourself driving in. What took you to all those places?

Wanderlust.

This it? Looks like traffic stopped for a presidential landing. https://youtube.com/shorts/GQWtCBUlXq0

The Panamerican Road in El Salvador has an airfield like this too. It's next to a military base. I've never heard of it being used, maybe it was during the civil 80s civil war.

https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7720949,-89.3716038,3a,40y,1...

Interesting! Here is a closer view of the Runway 03 threshold:

https://goo.gl/maps/5JE2YpEh75V52coR6

And Runway 21 (the same runway in the opposite direction):

https://goo.gl/maps/2TDPFFNqbW1CSCGA8

There's a YouTube video[1] of the German Armed Forces showing an emergency airfield on a German Autobahn from 1988. It's subtitled, but only in German. Autotranslation is available though.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_cxkF6qSY8

A lot of roads are runways for JAS Gripen in Sweden/EU :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-2Xde54xz4

To cross the Atlantic between NA and Europe you need to be able to travel 138 minutes from an airport, although for almost the entire area it’s 120 minutes.

This is accomplished by having air strips which can take massive planes like A350s at remote places which can’t justify planes of that size normally like Newfoundland, Greenland and the Azores

While these are mainly there for military and temporary emergency use, in 2001 they were used far more - with dozens of planes landing at tiny towns like Gander and St. John’s in Newfoundland, places which only really expect a single large plane to land and refuel rather than 30 with passengers to accommodate for days.

The maximum time you can be away from a suitable landing spot depends on the ETOPS certification (or 60 minutes if you don't have one). The certification is specific to the type of plane and operator.

A modern 777 at most airlines for example has an ETOPS rating of 180 minutes.

That's 180 minutes of flying with a failed engine. So you have to take into account whether you can maintain altitude on 1 engine. Most of the time you can't, you'll be flying lower. Which means slower speed, so the calculation is 180 minutes at that speed.

Gander's role in 2001 was made into a musical, and it's quite a touching and heailng piece of entertainment if you were around back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcI1EKE01S0 -- certainly best on stage if you can find it, but also available on Apple TV.

To cross the Atlantic with a twin-engined plane has that requirement (ETOPS).

This was a fun rabbit hole to go down, with the ETOPS [1] hint.

I enjoyed the history of ETOPS-138 [0]. ETOPS-120 leaves some small triangles of the Atlantic inaccessible, particularly if one emergency airfield is unavailable. A 15% increase to 138 minutes covers it.

Anecdotally, though, my experience as a commercial passenger feels like airlines fly almost directly over pacific islands rather than within X minutes of diversion. My memory may be anchored in bygone years.

[0] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/30979/why-etops...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS

gcmap can map path with etops consideration http://www.gcmap.com/mapui

> pacific islands

Depending on the jet streams, the flight can take the great circle route [0] or taking advantage of the jet stream [1] and flying more southernly

[0] https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JAL6/history/20230108/02... [1] https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JAL6/history/20230105/02...

Even then, it didn't take the actual great circle route because Russia.

The Japan to Europe flights are even worse. The great circle route cuts west, straight across Russia [0]. These days, they fly east to the Bering Strait then more or less directly over the north pole [1] (though probably easier to see on great-circle: [2])

[0] http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=HND-FRA

[1] https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DLH717/history/20230109/...

[2] http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=HND-NUZAN-KUTAL-FRA

The direct route from FRA (Frankfurt Airport) to KUTAL (a navigational beacon on the Baring Sea in American airspace) passes within just 51 miles of the North Pole

Back in the Soviet era when USSR airspace was closed to most Western flights, planes couldn't do that route non stop from Europe, so had to stop over in Anchorage for refueling.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=BINP%2CFRA-KUTAL%0D%0A&MS=wls&D...

Need to find an excuse to go to Japan

That's pretty close.

Playing around, a theoretical NUE (Nuremberg) to KUTAL flight comes within 1 mile of the North Pole

Looking at FR24's tracks (which are suplemented by satellite updates now), they do seem to fly further south, presumably to benefit from winds

Well into the 24 hour polar night/day period though (depending on time of year)

I recommend the Wendover Productions Youtube video on ETOPS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g

I presume there must be an examption for Easter Island, which is so remote that they only allow one aircraft within a thousand miles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mataveri_International_Airport...

Officially ETOPS stands for "Engines Turn or Passengers Swim"

> The infrastructural insurance spent to prevent lives lost in air travel appears to be much higher than lives on road travel. Could it be that the insurance is for the aircraft, not the lives?

I would be surprised if the cost of equipment and training pilots and whatelse was not factored in.

But the major driver might be that you have to pay for more expensive insurance to get regular people to strap themselves into something going many miles per hour many feet above the ground. Not because it's inherently less safe (though I would argue it is) but because the prospect is scarier!

Sounds similar to Gibraltar airport, which is both a civilian airstrip, as well as a military one (the military base is opposite the passenger terminal).

If you haven't looked into Gibraltar airport before, it's a fascinating thing - the land it's on is reclaimed using rock dug out from the siege tunnels, there's a level crossing on it as the only route into the town crosses the runway; if a plane is coming into land, or taking off, you have to wait at the barriers. It's also the city airport closest to the city centre it serves at 500m.

The level crossing has been moved underground a few years ago.

awww, that's a shame, haven't been for about 6 years, but that was always a favourite part.

True, it's kinda special aviation history. Like the Kai Tak approach. But I think that for security and traffic reasons (eg foreign debris) it would have had to change eventually.

Lake Shore Drive in Chicago has also been used as an emergency landing runway but smaller general aviation aircraft complete. At least one of the planes ended up flying under a pedestrian bridge over lake shore drive during the landing.

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