A day at the beach is usually a pretty relaxing excursion, but tourists who find themselves at Maho Beach on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin are often treated to something that really gets the heart pumping: jet airliners taking off and landing right over their heads.
The beach has become famous for its incredibly close proximity to the nearby airport, often leading massive planes to slip just 100 feet over the heads of those relaxing on the beach. It’s also apparently a really great place to get dry, and a video has been making the rounds that demonstrates it perfectly.
The video was actually originally posted five years ago but never quite got the attention it deserves. A recent post from BoingBoing gave it a boost and reminded everyone just how crazy it really is. Check it out:
Not to overstate the obvious, but this is some pretty wild stuff. You can see in the video just how close the planes are, and the folks getting blown away are hanging on to the fence that acts as a barrier between the general public and the runway itself.
To their credit, the fellas who have decided it’s a good idea to let a couple of jet engines blow in their direction appear to take it pretty well. Only a couple of the guys decide to abort the mission once the wind really starts to kick up, and the rest just kind of put their heads down and endure it.
It’s probably not the safest way to dry off after a day at the beach — the local government does warn against the risk of serious injury and death from standing too close to the runway boundaries when jets are doing their thing — but you won’t get an experience like this anywhere else in the world.
