Standing behind a plane taking off : how stupid can you be?

[capetown]

We all know the spectacular scenes of airplanes landing a few meters over the beach at Sint-Maarten's Princess Juliana airport. It definitely is NOT a good idea to try to approach aircraft there that are about to take off ... How silly can you be ? (Brings back rather unpleasant memories from BRU where I was standing too close to an Iberia DC-9 in the 1980's suddenly turning its back on me and starting to unleash its engines ...)

http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail. ... 120410_140

[Maho Bay]

I am very lucky to have some family living in St Maarten (hence my name on this forum) so I have been there quite some times so far.

I cannot believe what these people did! From my previous experiences: the approaches are very nice and beautiful, but when a plane takes off you'ld better go and watch it at a safe distance (and take your belongings with you if you don't want to find them in the Caribbean sea afterwards ).

Even with smaller planes standing on the beach itself can be tricky: being sandblasted can be painfull, especially when you're already a bit sunburned after a long afternoon of spotting at the beach!

[capetown]

Well exactly - there you go ! The "incident" in Brussels I refer to was bad (hot kerosine smelling air blown from that Iberia DC-9 although I was probably still approx. 50 meters (if not more) behind it. On this video, they are closer (at least, they were, in the beginning ). I've never been to Maho - isn't this incident about to trigger some measures to be taken ?

[regi]

Unbelievable what people try to do to sue an airline
Sorry, but the co pilot made a gesture ( I think it meant Go Away ) out of the open window, watch closely !
The other beach lovers were already running far away, but she wanted to hang on. Too much beer or coctails perhaps ?

[capetown]

Sorry, but the co pilot made a gesture ( I think it meant Go Away ) out of the open window, watch closely !

Hmm, well spotted - hadn't noticed this myself ... ! Definitely too many beers AND coctails though to comply with this guy's request ...

[BigJets]

Well, are we all going to be shocked and wonder why one day they will close that beach and fence area, due to "SAFETY REASONS"???
The few "foolish" and "crazy" people that want to play the big hero and want to show off to their friends how "tough" they are could be the cause why there will be NO MORE beach access, NO MORE spectacular photography and NO MORE standing by the fence. It will just be an airport, like any other airport where you will be looking at aircraft FROM A DISTANCE, all because of a hand-full of people.
The title here is really correct.... "HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE !!!"

[WC_EEND]

From what I've read on the internet (I've never been to SXM myself) "surfing" the fence at SXM is quite popular there. However the Jetblue pilots are also (partly) at fault. They took off from the displaced threshold instead of the actual runway and spooled up the engines with the brakes on (which is against Jetblue SOP according to a JB pilot on airliners.net).
That doesn't take away that what the woman did was no doubt irresponsible and largely her own fault.

As a closing note I'd also like to say: I love the sound of those IAE V2500 engines spooling up. Sounds a bit like the RB211's on the 757 and 747.

[smokejumper]

Lack if intelligence, fence surfing and sun all seem to combine in this situation!