This is the heart-stopping moment a Wizz Air passenger jet skimmed just yards above tourists’ heads as it landed on a Greek island, according to some, the lowest ever landing at the airport.
A jet enthusiast who was positioned to watch planes touch down on Greece’s Skiathos island uploaded dramatic footage of the landing last week.
The landing strip on the island, built just yards from the sea, has become a magnet for thrill-seeking tourists looking to capture spectacular landings.
Even experienced plane spotters were taken aback as the plane barreled towards the tarmac and narrowly missed the airport’s perimeter fence.
The video begins with a distant plane cruising over the turquoise Mediterranean waters towards Skiathos Alexandros Papadiamantis Airport.
Several people are depicted congregating on the beach and a road that runs along a narrow strip of land between the sea and the runway.
However, as the Wizz Air Airbus A321neo approaches, it is clear that the pilot is bringing it in at a low altitude. In anticipation of a low landing, one onlooker begins to move out of the way.
Others can be heard shouting in surprise over the roar of the engines as the pink and white jet swoops down until it is just a few yards above the plane spotters’ heads, and even wobbles slightly as it prepares to land.
It is so low that it kicks up dust and sand into the air and ruffles the hair of one man who is seen flinching in the footage as it narrowly clears the perimeter fence.
As a result, the plane’s wheels make contact with the tarmac, and the pilot successfully lands the jet on Skiathos.
One aviation buff, commentating underneath the video posted to YouTube by GreatFlyer on August 5, explained why the conditions meant such a low landing was necessary.
‘High temperature and very short runway, you have to do a deep landing to maximise the available runway for stop,’ they wrote.
One person joked: ‘How many of the spectators do you think needed new pants?’. Another jested: ‘A powerfull hair dryer, isn’t it!?’
The Wizz Air pilots’ landing in Skiathos was the lowest ever at the airport, according to GreatFlyer, whose YouTube channel features dozens of dramatic plane landings and take-offs.
The airport’s runway is located in the north-east of Skiathos island, sandwiched between two hills that flank the tarmac.
Because the runway runs north-south and coast-to-cast, pilots must approach as low as possible in order to give themselves enough runway to land and come to a stop.
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