Remembering Congonhas

I woke up this morning for yet another round of flights. I switched on the TV and found a horrific scene, a plane had crashed. An A320 had crashed while landing at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport. The carnage of it all foretold the inevitable outcome, 200 people had died.

Many years ago, I went to Brazil on a holiday with some friends from Argentina. I had heard about the wonders of Congonhas and Rio's Santos Dumont. I had a pleasure of jumpseating the flights into both airports, and they were unforgettable.

Santos-Dumont was a scenic airport from a pilot's point of view, although, one could be said to be crazy to want to fly jets there. It's only 1350m with water on either end. It was definitely not a place to mess around. My pulse raced on the finals into Santos-Dumont, but it was nothing in comparison to Congonhas.

Congonhas' runway is about 2000m long. So what gitu lho! Sorry, it's 2000m long at an elevation of 2500ft. The nearest we got to that in Indonesia are Bandung and Malang, with Bandung having a slightly longer runway than Congonhas, and at a similar elevation. I had not flown into Malang so I can't comment. So what made Congonhas so scary? Bandung has no ILS at the moment, and the applicable minimas are "generous" in terms of, if the weather conditions are such that it's going to make you run for the toilet, you'd be below minimas and had to go elsewhere. Before I took the holiday to Congonhas, I already had a jumpseat ride into Bandung. I thought it would just be similar, and I was wrong.

Approaching Congonhas I quickly noticed the difference. First, it was busy. Second, you'd need the ILS there because unless you fly in and out of there everyday, there's no way you could find it, especially on a wet night! It was in the middle of a concrete jungle with lights everywhere. The crew I jumpseated did the familiar method to what we use for short runways. Duck under the slope when visual, land early and watch the speed and any wind that could send you hitting the ground lower. Once you landed, throw out whatever you have, and progressively manual brake to a halt, forget the autobrake if you got a tight schedule and cannot afford delaying due to brake cooling.

I could have ngompol (wet my pants) during that landing had the crew not told me beforehand what it would involve. Thank God they did tell me. On short final, you can see that the airport is 20 - 30 meters above the surrounding neighbourhood. Go low and you'll hit the hill, or the localizer antennae mounted on huge pylons about 100m from the airport. If you want a merciless airport, this would be it. Overrun, find yourself flying off the hill onto the buildings below. Go too low, and you won't make it onto the perimeter thanks to the hill. It was wet, it was scary, but it wasn't me flying. If it was me I could have just said, "forget this, I'm landing somewhere else."

Congonhas is just a memory, it was a thrilling one. But now, it is a sad one. In Memory of those who perished on JJ3504 yesterday.