Back in June 2009 I made a trip to Boracay Island. Most visitors who travel to Boracay do so via the airport in Kalibo which can handle jet aircraft. I instead decided to fly via the airport closes to Boracay, The Godofredo P. Ramos Airport MPH, also known as Caticlan Airport and recently, Boracay Airport located in the town of Malay.
While it is the 7th busiest airport in the Philippines, it has a very short runway of only 3,116ft in length which makes for very dramatic landings and take-off's. The edge of runway 6 is barely a few feet from a road that requires it to be closed to traffic for every take-off and landing.
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| The piano keys just feet from the fence |
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| The boom gate that stops traffic when needed | |
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Soon I was rewarded with my first plane, a L-410 operated by SEAair. I had never been this close to a plane taking-off before.
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| SEAair L-410 heading for MNL |
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| I was not prepared with the right lens! | | | | | | | |
Most flights arrive and depart in the morning for Manila and Cebu and soon 2 Dash 8-300 from PAL express arrived and you can see them coming in low over the beach and road.
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| Minutes later a second Dash 8 came in for landing |
Later on the boat, I got another view of the landing this time of the SEAair Dornier 328.
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| A St. Maarten like experience if you are on the beach |
As I said earlier I had planned to fly into Caticlan but my flight was diverted to Kalibo because of an incident. Zest Airways Flight 863, a Xian MA60
with 54 passengers and five crew aboard, overshot the runway when it
landed and totally lost its
braking capability causing it to overshoot Runway 24. There were no
injuries.
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| The aircraft came to a stop here as seen by the marks on the ground |
The plane lost it's nose gear. While waiting for repair it ended up resting on a baggage trolley.
The terminal building is small and can get congested during peak times.
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| Security checks takes place at the tent |
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| Some airlines use buildings across the street as waiting lounges |
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| Small and busy check-in |
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| Busy apron with flights to Manila and Cebu |
Hope to return soon to Boracay and get to experience this small airport again!
