A question in USA Today’s popular “Ask the Captain” commercial aviation column deals with Costa Rica’s busiest airport, our beloved Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) in Alajuela. The question is about the angle of the SJO runway. The reader noticed that the passenger terminal, which runs parallel to the runway, is on a rising incline from gate 1 all the way past gate 20. This means that you could get a work out from walking the length of the terminal a few times since you will be going uphill.

The answer from veteran airline pilot John Cox on USA Today is that runways are not flat, and that their slope is something that aviators take into account when they prepare for takeoff. Captain Cox even mentioned humps on the runway (though not at SJO), which make for difficult landings.

Frequent air travelers who arrive in Costa Rica for business or pleasure will invariably have a story to share about a scary landing in SJO. A quick Internet search will reveal a few videos of bumpy, scary takeoffs, landings and approaches from nervous passengers or cockpit personnel. A scary landing at SJO is an event that would make any tourist really appreciate the firm ground of Costa Rica.

Is landing in Costa Rica, namely at SJO, scary? Considering that atmospheric disturbances are the bane of pilots everywhere, SJO landings and approaches can be as scary as in many other airports around the world. Chaotic air disturbances, vortexes (or vortices), microbursts, and wind shear are hazards that can develop in just about any climate condition, particularly during thunderstorms. For this reason, pilots flying in and out of Costa Rica would probably prefer the weather conditions of our dry season.

A posting at the Airliners.net civil aviation forum described a situation in which the often wet and foggy conditions at SJO during the green season once made for a scary approach aboard an American Airlines A300 Airbus in 2006:

“We had just descended just below the cloud ceiling and actually saw what seemed to be the ground… It was at night so it was hard to see, but we all of a sudden we pulled back up. I have never experienced so many Gs… The pilot really “stepped on the gas” (or pressed on the lever, I shall say), and we quickly got out of there and began to circle for a while. The weather was so bad… to make the story short we landed in LIR (Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Liberia).”

In terms of runway and approach conditions, SJO is nowhere near the challenging airports of Princess Juliana in Saint Maarten, where the runway is only 2,400 meters in length and the commercial jets fly just over sunbathers on the beach, or the Saba Airport in the Netherlands Antilles -a very short runway surrounded by sheer cliffs that lead right down to the Caribbean Sea. Then there was the infamous and now-closed Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, where maverick pilots enjoyed dodging skyscrapers and mountains to land on a short runway protruding out to Victoria Harbor.

Air travelers in Costa Rica who fly on the smaller aircraft fleets of Sansa Regional and Nature Air can probably experience more thrills during takeoff and landing than the commercial airliners at SJO. Pilots who love challenging approaches and difficult runways would probably enjoy the landing strip at Golfito/Puerto Jimenez. Here’s another description from an aviator who has experience flying for Sansa Regional:

“I found exciting those landings at MRGF/GLF Golfito, taking into account the challenging topography all around.

Most of the airports we fly to are located close to the ocean, and in some places the ocean is very close to the mountains (like in the case of Golfito). I really enjoy the landings at Tambor, Puerto Jimenez, Drake, Punta Islita, Tamarindo, especially because those runways are less than 3000 ft long! Golfito is much longer but it’s almost surrounded by hills.”

The Internet Aviation Safety Database does not report any fatal accidents involving aircraft on the SJO runway; however, there was a scary situation on September 3, 2007 involving the aborted takeoff of a North American NA-265 Sabreliner 70 operated by Jet Lease Corp. The airplane ran off the right side of the runway into the grass. The undercarriage collapsed as the plane skidded and turned 180 degrees. Otherwise, the SJO runway has a very good safety record.