york. flight 980 s destination, the caribbean. juliana airport in st. maarten. pilots say it s one of the trickiest places in the world to land a plane, especially a 747, as this video shows. the postage stamp-size runway is perilously close to a beach. people can practically reach out and touch jets as they re coming down just a few feet over their heads. if the airplane were to land short and end up on that beach full of people, it would be catastrophic. to be that close to that large an airplane moving that quickly, i guess the term awesome comes to mind. aside from physical limitations of the runway, there s also a mountain range blanketing one side of the airport. and if all that isn t enough, there s that unpredictable caribbean weather. all those factors combined are about to turn a routine flight into a nightmare. for the first time after four decades the pilot of that
problems. imagine a pilot ends up over the caribbean sea, out of fuel, out of options, and soon into the ocean. that s the tragic story of a.l.m. flight 980. but what went so wrong? may 2nd, 1970. in a partnership between two now defunct charter airlines, dutch carrier a.l.m. and american carrier overseas national airlines, a.l.m. flight 980 is set to leave new york s jfk airport at 11:00 a.m. 57 passengers and six crew members are on board. it was a beautiful spring day. temperatures were in the 60s. scattered clouds. light winds. it was a beautiful day in new york. flight 980 s destination, the caribbean. juliana airport in st. maarten. pilots say it s one of the trickiest places in the world to