Had to giggle, despite the severity of the incident, as the Airtours kangaroo went down the runway.
The lady tower controller exclaimed quite hysterically
"AIRTOURS, AIRTOURS, YOU HAVE SPARKLES COMING OUT OF YOUR BOTTOM!!!!"

It is absurd to have holiday airports that require a degree of luck to operate into. I have never been there on holiday and wouldn't dream of going there with my family until the local authority builds a runway which is safe.
I agree with the idea that the maximum weight should be limited to 5,700kg until a normal runway is built somewhere on the Island that can really accommodate holiday flights.

No runway-no tourists.

Sorry to add a word of dissent but aren't we getting a bit hysterical about FNC?
Operated in their over three years continuously (3 flights a week!) and I began to feel that I knew the place - and this was before the runway extension.
Yes, it is challenging and you need to be careful but I think it is wrong to "blame" the airport, etc.
I have donned my pith helmet and now await the onslaught!

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Flew into FNC recently as part of the monday
"rush" and the wind is tricky and variable but the runway is excellent.What is needed is some radar coverage especially when planning a descent.We were still at FL250 overhead the Porto Santo VOR(just over 30 miles to run)due to procedural cover and had to lose the height over the Funchal VOR.An
Air Luxor L1011 was doing touch and goes on 05 and 23 during the rush which made things very interesting!!They are now competing with TAP on the Lisbon shuttle and fly via Porto Santo.

No tin hat needed Fireflybob.....Glad that someone feels confident about the airport - you must be a GB airways pilot - they do a very good job in and out of there.

FNC has a full history of accidents and the problems with the new runway are a disaster 'in waiting'. It is not if - but when. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif

Let us just hope that when the next one happens - everyone will have the same luck as Airtours recent episode.

I hear that TAP, who already lose money on their Lisbon-FNC route, may reduce their daily flights if Luxor continue to take their revenue from them....Madeira will be renamed Alcrataz.....You can't escapr without risk when going there or getting away!

Well if we are going to slag FNC off, why not throw in Mikonos, Samos and R/W 17 at night in Corfu. I would also be hapy never to work out of Leeds again.

Ticker, yeh I have to say i agree with you on all those places, especially Corfu. Maybe we should stert a new thread on BAD PLACES.

I got a look at the aircraft involved and it has a large area of damage under the aft cargo bay , an working party (airbus ?)are repairing the damage.

SOPS - good idea; start a new thread called BAD TARMAC and incoude Cofu and Funchal. I would be good to have a European forum for us all to read problems and solutions of European airports.

Hope Airtoiurs get their aricraft back - there must now be many pissed off pax at Gatwick waiting for their Airtours flights (mind you they are used to it!).

Moderator - can your search engine be programmed to search all the forums at once please?

Not without stopping the whole site DB - very processor intensive.

You'll have to wait for when we get the mainframe ........

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Regards from the Towers
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