Maho Beach, located on the Dutch side of St. Maarten, is well known for being one of the world’s most dangerous airports. Tourists flock to the beach to watch planes land at Princess Juliana International Airport. People can stand about 100ft under one of the big jets.  Some tourists attempt to take pictures to suggest they are “holding” the planes. Others choose to wait for the flights to take off and hang on to the fence.

There is a surf board located at the beachside restaurant that tell the arrivals of the big planes for the day. The white sand beach is sometimes topless, even when the tourists choose not to, due to the high wind from the jets! In fact, on one of our trips, we watched a man lose his toupee while trying to hang onto the fence during a jet’s take off!

Maho Beach is one of our favorite destinations. (Chris actually proposed on this island!) We could spend all day watching the planes take off and land here. We have seen planes abort take off because the pilot did not have enough speed to make it up and over the mountains. I have watched as people have been blown into the ocean. Chris and I have held onto the fence with other tourists as one of the Boeing 747s took off from the airport. The sand feels like needles and you just pray nothing hits you and knocks you out! But, today (October 31, 2016) is the LAST day you can watch the 747s land here at Maho Beach. Smaller planes will still be landing and are a joy to watch!