11 October and 1 November
I was fortunate, managing to sit in a window seat on the Himalayan side of the aircraft for the outward and return journeys between Kathmandu and Paro. Moreover, there were clear views both times. On the outward journey, I simply enjoyed the experience, deciding not to worry about taking any photos. I spotted Mount Everest amongst the summits. As we descended into Paro, I noticed us turning along the valley, the wing appearing impossibly close to land. We were even warned to expect sudden drops and movements while the pilot skilfully steered the plane towards the runway for a perfect landing. The American passengers clapped as is customary – but on this occasion it’s well deserved as this is definitely an extraordinary flight culminating in an even more extraordinary landing. Although Paro International is one of the most dangerous airports in the World, the safety record is excellent – attributed to the rigorous pilot certification process and the conservative approach to adverse weather conditions.
The day before we left Bhutan we’d been taken to a viewpoint above Paro Airport to watch the planes land and take off, all achieved under direct vision with no instrument landings and no room for error. There’s certainly no night flying to or from this airport. The plane goes very close to and weaves between the mountains; it has to fly down a valley between mountains as high as 18,000 ft to reach the airport at 7,364 ft above sea level. We watched a couple of planes land, interestingly one from the north and one from the south so we saw the runway being used in both directions. The plane swings round then banks as the pilot steers with the aircraft only stabilised for landing when it’s just 30 feet above the runway. There are only around thirty pilots who are licensed to land here.
I hadn’t expected to sit in a prime window seat position on the return journey as well. However, this ended up being my allocated seat so I decided to use the opportunity to take some pictures. I’ve been able to pick out some of the peaks I photographed.
What an amazing flight!
It looks like you had fabulous views out the plane window. I’m not normally a particularly nervous flier, but I think I’d be a tad skittish (to put it mildly) about arriving at or departing from that airport after reading your description of its flight operations.
Safe travels.
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Thank you! It looks as if the selection and training of the pilots is impeccable – despite all the technical difficulties, there haven’t been any major commercial accidents.
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