![]() ![]() Irausquin had died the year before and his widow cut the ribbon at the official opening ceremony on September 18. The airport officially began service on July 24, 1963. Then on February 1, 1963, a twin engine PA-23 Apache piloted by George Greaux landed on the newly asphalted runway. On March 22, 1962, while the airport was under construction, three helicopters from the Dutch aircraft carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman landed there, marking the second time aircraft landed on the island. The company contracted to build the airport was owned by Wathey's brother Chester as well as Jacques Deldevert. Irausquin told friends that during a harrowing voyage to Saba by sloop in 1960 he promised to look for funds to build an airport on the island if his life was spared. The Dutch government made 600,000 guilders available to build it as part of a larger 3-year plan for the Windward Islands. Sint Maarten politician Claude Wathey, who also represented Saba in the Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruban politician Juancho Irausquin, who was at the time Minister of Finance for the Netherlands Antilles, supported the construction of an airport. In the lead up to the 1962 parliamentary elections, the lack of an airport on the island became a big issue. Īfter that first landing, de Haenen was prohibited from making further landings on the island and there were no flights to or from Saba for several years. De Haenen made the first landing of an aircraft on the island of Saba on February 9, 1959, with nearly the entire population of the island in attendance. The land was cleared and graded in only a couple of weeks. After surveying the island by air, de Haenen suggested then-privately owned Flat Point as the site for the airport. De Haenen had previously made several landings of a Vought-Sikorsky OS2U seaplane off Fort Bay harbor as early as 1946. The idea of building an airport on Saba is credited to Remy de Haenen, who brought the idea to the Saba Economic Council along with a contractor named Jacques Deldevert. The most common aircraft to land there are the STOL (short takeoff and landing)-capable de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter and Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander. The airport is closed to jet traffic, but regional airline propeller aircraft are able to land there under waivers from The Netherlands Antilles' Civil Aviation Authority. ![]() The airport, named after the Aruban Minister Juancho Irausquin, has the shortest commercial runway in the world, only 400 metres (1,312 ft) long, flanked on one side by high hills, with cliffs that drop into the sea at both ends. Its runway is widely acknowledged as the shortest commercial runway in the world, with a length of 400 m (1,312 ft). Irausquin Airport ( IATA: SAB, ICAO: TNCS) is an airport on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba. Notes: One of the world’s most extreme approach airports due to its proximity to the beach and short runway, St Maarten is popular for low overhead photo opportunities of aircraft just prior to touchdown, and ‘fence surfers’ on Maho Beach, who stand behind jets throttling up on departure from Runway 10.įor the Caribbean’s other ‘extreme-approach’ airport, please see the streaming webcams at St Barts/Gustav III Airport.Juancho E. Also ‘fence-surfers’ standing behind departing aircraft. Sunset Beach Bar adjacent to Maho Beach.Ĭam View: View of Maho Beach & ‘extreme approach’ onto Runway 10. – Site 2: West at whole airport complex, showing runway 10/28, terminal and apron.Ĭam Location: Off-Airport. Site 1: Usually W at Runway 10/28 arrivals & departures. Peter’s Hill.Ĭam View: Host-controllable. Webcam Viewing Options: Web site 1 – Web site 2Ĭam Location: Off-Airport. ![]()
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