Inside world’s SMALLEST commercial airport with painfully short runway surrounded by cliff plunges and a teeny terminal

PILOTS risk plunging into the ocean when landing at the world’s smallest commercial airport with alarmingly short runway sitting at the cliff edge.

The only airport on the island of Saba features the tiny stretch of land which holds title for the shortest commercial runway in the world.

YouTube/ElivanWitsen

The shortest runway stretches only 400 metres[/caption]

Getty

The airport is surrounded by the ocean and steep cliffs[/caption]

Alamy

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport SAB terminal interior[/caption]

Alamy

The DHC-6 Twin Otter is the most common aircraft to land there[/caption]

Saba’s runway is just over a tenth of the size of Heathrow’s

Landing at Saba’s Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport isn’t for fainthearted, and requires not only bravery, but immaculate skills.

Often listed as one of the “world’s scariest landings”, tourists that reached the island can be seen sporting “I survived the Saba landing” shirts.

It takes a group of the highly-skilled and specially trained pilots to steer the wheel and navigate the plane over steep hills.

Pilots have only 400m to stop the plane before a sheer drop into the ocean at the opposite end.

To put things into perspective, Heathrow Airport’s runway is 3, 900m in length.

Taking off from the airport is equally thrilling as passengers hold their breath while the plane speeds up towards the cliff plunge.

As the aircraft reaches the end of the cliff and runway, a sigh of relief can be let out when it lifts off into the air at the last possible second.

Such a stunt can be performed only by adrenaline-junkie, and the veteran aviator Captain Roger Hodge is one of them.

Captain Hodge trains future “Top Guns” for the WinAir – the only airline operating scheduled flights on the island.

Considering the airstrip operates without an air traffic control centre though, that is probably for the best.

He told CNN: “As a pilot I just love going into Saba because that’s when you put your experience to work.

“There’s always adrenaline that kicks in because you’re being watched by passengers and people on the ground, but you’ve just got to fly that machine.”

The first man to ever land on the tiny runway was an ambitious aviator Remy de Haenen.

It is thanks to him the airport exists as he brought the idea to build an airstrip on the site aptly named Flat Point.

The area was cleared in two weeks, and he made the first-ever landing on Saba island on February 9, 1959.

The whole town was in attendance to witness the historic moment.

James Franklin Johnson, who was eight at the time, told CNN: “Everybody came out, crowds and crowds of people. It was amazing.

“Saba came out of isolation when the plane landed on the island.”

But Haenen was banned from repeating his risky stunt due to safety concerns, and the island wouldn’t get a fully functioning airport until 1963.

Today the smallest territory of the Netherlands, Saba has a population of 1,990 and welcomes just over 9,000 tourists each year.

And the airport serves as a lifeline to the island, transporting locals for medical treatment and bringing in visitors.

Alamy

People queue at Juancho Yrausquin Airport Immigration office[/caption]

The airport wasn’t built until 1963 and now serves as a lifeline to locals and touristsAlamy

Alamy

Small Winair airplane arriving at the airport- the only airline operating on the island[/caption]