Maho Beach in St Maarten might just be the best place in the world to go plane spotting. With a short runway of just 2300 metres, planes landing on the island need to hit the tarmac as close to the end as possible. That means dusting the beach and flying very low over Maho Beach.

This slow motion Instagram video of a plane landing at Maho Beach gives you an idea of just how low the planes get, and how thrilling it must be to watch this happen. It can also be dangerous.

“There is a danger of people standing on the beach being blown into the water because of the jet blast from aircraft. The local government warns that closely approaching and departing aircraft can “result in serious injury and/or death”. An additional fence has been added recently behind runway 10, in order to prevent people from hanging onto the main fence surrounding the runway to experience being blasted by the jet flow.” [wikipedia]

Watch the clip below and then put it on our bucket list!

Flying frequently tends to make one either bitter or obsessed with aviation. I fall into the latter category. Visiting Maho Beach in Saint Marteen was always on my bucket list. It's as crazy as it looks — planes landing just feet from a public beach.

A video posted by Paul Luning (@pluning) on Feb 14, 2015 at 9:45am PST

Buzz

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