This airport landing is so challenging only 50 pilots are qualified do it

There’s a Buddha in the cockpit. The orange-robed icon looks on as the pilot speedily executes a dramatic last-minute turn to land the A319 on the slender runway. A dozen passengers, some of whom have spent the last few minutes white-knuckling the seat armrests, break out into applause. That’s just another normal working day at Bhutan’s Paro International Airport (PBH), widely considered one of the most technically difficult plane landings in the world. Maneuvering onto a short runway between two 18,000-foot peaks requires both technical knowledge and nerves of steel. The airport and its challenging conditions have only added to the mystique surrounding travel to Bhutan, a Himalayan kingdom of about 800,000 people. The unique conditions of flying in and out of Paro mean that jumbo jets are a no-go. But for aviation fans, that’s part of the appeal of visiting the Land of the Thunder Dragon. First things first: Paro is “difficult, but not dangerous,” says Captain Chimi Dorji, who has been working at Bhutan’s national state-owned airline, Druk Air (aka Royal Bhutan Airlines), for 25 years. “It is challenging on the skill of the pilot, but it’s not dangerous, because if it were dangerous, I wouldn’t be flying.” A combination of geographic factors make Paro – and much of Bhutan – visually stunning. They also make flying in and out of Paro a highly specialized skill. Paro is a category C airport, which means that pilots must have special training to fly there. They must perform the landing themselves manually, without radar. As Dorji says, it’s critical for pilots to know the landscape around the airport – mess it up by even a fraction of an inch, and you could land on top of someone’s house.<br/>