Watch moment BA pilot lands plane at one of the world's 'scariest' airports...thanks to cameras placed in the cockpit

 
Tricky: Strong winds add to the challenge
British Airways/YouTube
Sebastian Mann9 June 2015

Cockpit footage has emerged of an unflappable pilot battling difficult winds to land at one of the world's most challenging airports without conventional computer assistance.

The video shows captains Ally Wilcox and Ian Mills using only "good judgment" as they descend into Funchal at the end of a recent flight from London to the city on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Proximity to nearby terrain - seen on the left of shot - and strong Atlantic winds make landing at the airport extremely tricky, and as a result Portuguese authorities require pilots to be approved before they can fly to the destination.

Narrator Mr Wilcox is one of just 20 British Airways pilots to have passed the special two- hour simulator training session, he tells viewers during the video.

He says: "[The terrain] means that we have to fly it around the bay and very close to the terrain before completing a curving approach on to the runway.

"We normally use instruments to land the aircraft at most airports but there's no ILS [instrument landing system] approach into Funchal so we have to navigate around the bay visually using good judgment, hugging the coast in order to line up with the runway."

He adds: "One of the other very difficult areas with Funchal is the wind - as it is out in the Atlantic wind is often strong and and very variable in nature.

"So with this approach we face exactly that challenge, with a head wind becoming a crosswind pushing us towards the terrain and here ending up as a tailwind as we landed on the runway."

The relatively short runway used to be even shorter, with stilts being built in 2000 to extend it out over the sea.

Its size, strong winds and awkward location mean Funchal Airport regularly appears in lists of the scariest or most challenging airports in the world.

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