The world’s highest airport 3,000 metres above the UK’s tallest peak

Perched connected a dizzying slope successful China’s Sichuan state is Daocheng Yading Airport, which – astatine 4,411 metres (14,472 ft) supra oversea level – is the world’s highest airport.

Comparatively, it is truthful gangly that it towers miles supra Ben Nevis, the UK’s highest constituent which is much than 3 times little than the altitude of Daocheng Yading. But dissimilar different larger, flashier transit hubs, this airport has lone 1 runway, measuring 4,200 metres (13,800 ft) agelong and 45 metres (148 ft) wide.

The airport’s opening successful 2013 was large quality for locals, slashing the formation clip from Daocheng to Chengdu, the region’s capital, to conscionable 1 hour. It changed people’s lives, arsenic the travel was antecedently lone imaginable by car oregon autobus – taking 11 hours oregon 2 days via nationalist transport.

But the airport’s altitude is truthful aggravated that passengers are advised to hole themselves beforehand. One TikToker, @aligoodguy, went viral aft sharing a video of himself wearing an oxygen disguise extracurricular the terminal.

Because of its presumption successful the Tibetan Plateau, Daocheng Yading Airport is simply a challenging onshore for adjacent the astir experienced pilots, and a perchance terrifying acquisition for their passengers and crew.

Dangerous terrain

The assemblage is retired connected the world’s astir unsafe formation path, but the Tibetan Plateau is surely up there, alongside the infamous ‘Bermuda Triangle’.

The thinness of the aerial causes unpredictable upwind patterns, truthful craft indispensable instrumentality disconnected and onshore astatine a slower velocity to negociate the conditions.

Sections of the plateau are truthful challenging that craft typically divert astir it, but there’s nary casual bypass – the astir unsafe portion of the plateau spans 970,000 quadrate miles, which is 5 times the size of France.

It covers astir of the Tibet Autonomous Region, arsenic good arsenic parts of mainland China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Inside the terrain are immoderate of the tallest mountains successful the satellite – including Mount Everest, which astatine 8,849 metres, is the world’s highest point.

A shortage of airports with capable exigency runway abstraction is an added occupation for the region, which means planes that into occupation with motor failure, upwind conditions oregon substance shortages person nary mode to land.

There person been aggregate level crashes successful the area, 1 arsenic caller arsenic 2022, erstwhile Tibet Airlines Flight 9833 veered disconnected the runway astatine Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport aft a failed take-off.

Both engines divided successful the process, sparking a occurrence astatine the beforehand of the craft that near 36 radical injured.

In May 2018, Sichuan Airlines Flight 8633 was forced to marque an exigency landing astatine Chengdu aft the cockpit windshield failed astir 40 minutes into the flight. There were 2 injuries, but luckily, each 119 passengers survived.

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