Madeira Airport
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Madeira Airport ( Portuguese: Aeroporto da Madeira ) also known as Funchal Airport and Santa Catarina Airport, is the international airport of belonging to Portugal Atlantic island of Madeira. It lies in the east of the island directly to the city of Santa Cruz.
History
Previously the approach was difficult and feared on the airport, as it directly located on the slope of the cliff where the wind shear can occur and until the fall of 2000 the railway with 1781 meters was also relatively short.
On 15 September 2000, extended to 2777 meter airstrip was opened, now able to land all aircraft types on the. The railway extension was implemented over a bay with an ornate supports building of 1020 meters length and 180 meters width for 520 million euros. The case built 3 meters thick concrete pillars are up to 120 meters long, of which up to 59 meters above ground, the rest is underground or anchored in the seabed. The building and the responsible engineers received the 2004 " Outstanding Structure Award" of the IABSE.
Special
Due to the immediate location on a cliff overhang and thereby occurring possible wind shear by downdrafts the Airport " Santa Catarina " is still one that is difficult to flying airports, especially as an instrument landing system is missing and a sharp right curve must be flown during the approach in the final stages. 's Why may landings be carried out by flight captains for specialty training.
Accidents
On the evening of November 19, 1977 at 21:35 clock crashed a Boeing 727-200 of TAP Portugal as it approached the then short runway. In heavy rain and poor visibility, the machine had to abort two landing attempts. The third approach from the northeast they sat too fast and about 600 meters (2000 feet) behind the optimum touchdown. Because of hydroplaning on the heavily flooded runway then the machine could not be brought to a halt and rushed past the end of runway 40 feet deep on the cliffs on the remaining nearly 900 meters. Only 33 of the 164 people on board survived the disaster. The accident did not happened because of the difficult approach from the southwest ( Runway 05), but on the supposedly simpler reverse course with approach from the northeast ( Runway 23) on the island of Porto Santo.
Just one month later, on 18 December 1977 a Caravelle crashed the SATA during the landing approach into the sea. 36 Of the 57 people on board were killed. The cause of the crash to human error has been detected. This misfortune drove the SATA airline into bankruptcy. In October 2011, the wreckage of the plane was found, unexpectedly, less deep than had been believed until then.
Approach
Road
The airport is located directly on one of the new highways that were built on the island of Madeira in recent years. The journey to the capital Funchal is about 15 minutes.
Bus
There is a regular bus service to Funchal, Machico and Caniço.