Barra Airport
Wednesday, 30th May 2007 by James Turnbull
This is Barra Airport, located on the hebridean island of Barra.
Now, I know what you're thinking, it's something along the lines of "No, you idiot, that's a beach!".
You're exactly right: Barra airport is the beach. In fact, it's the only airport in the world where scheduled flights land on a beach.
Of course, that schedule has to change regularly, as the airport's three runways all become completely unusable during high-tide.
The beach is open to the public, and supposedly good for cockle picking, all you have to do is check at the control tower to see if the airport is currently operational.
More info and ground level pictures here and on Wikipedia
Thanks: Adam Rus & nikitakou
No, you idiot, that’s a b…
Oh, right.
When i first read this i saw ‘cookie picking’! I dont know if its my dyslexia or my biscuit fixation.
sable island, a moon shaped island off the eastern coast of nova scotia, canada, has no runway either. planes land on the beach there in planes equipped with partially deflated tires so it can control its landing on the sand. the island itself is full of meteorological equipment for environment canada and wild horses.
View Placemark
link to sable island
But has it an airport? I think that was the point
Unless you’re just throwing out random information. Its all good! lol
Greg – what use do wild horses have for meteorological equipment?
And here are some pictures on airliners.net, although some of ’em are from Puerto Rico, not Scotland.
it has a very basic “airport” if you want to call it that. there are only 6 permanent residents on the island.
my point is … planes come in and out of sable all the time. always have to land on the beach. I thought that was the entire point to the post — airports on the beach.
long story short – they land on the sand there, but do they have an air traffic controller? I have no idea. If they do, its obviously nothing extravagant.
and lol @ the wild horses comment. I posted this minutes after waking up, and you can certainly tell :p
Strange…Google Maps’ satellite maps must be out today or something, as I’m getting the ‘we’re sorry’ message on all of the links today. Bah…I hope they get it working again soon.
… ok there is a beautiful beach on Barra island, but I don’t think there is so much people going to sunbathe here 🙂 Planes can easy operate !
Yeah – my first honorable mention on GSS! Cheers J!
At Barra they put flags up to warn you when the flights coming in… Check out the powerkiting if you’re there!