Landing at Funchal International, Madeira Island
By Scott Clifford / EHM0695
First Place at the February 2003 Story Contest
The most obvious unique quality of
Madeira Island’s Funchal International Airport is the runway. Initially the northernmost end of the
runway was built on stilts – literally. Although recently, the runway was expanded, the stilted portion still
exists.
It was time to take a load of tourists to this vacation island. After the operations briefing, my crew and I boarded the Airbus A330-300 at London’s Heathrow International Airport and began the checklists. Flight plan to Funchal was filed and clearance received. The ground crew eased the giant bird away from the gate and the pre-start sequence was completed.
The quiet hum of the two Rolls-Royce Trent 772B turbofan engines soothed my stomach after a less than appetizing breakfast in the staff cafeteria. All checks were completed and we were ready for our flight.
“Heathrow Ground, EuroHarmony 6221 ready for taxi IFR to Funchal.” It was a cool, rainy day in London this afternoon and the fog was rolling in from all quadrants. Just another regular day at Heathrow International. We were lined up on the taxiways ten plus planes long waiting for clearance to depart. Nothing out of the ordinary, busy – as usual. We left the gate a few minutes early so the delay shouldn’t keep our customers away from their vacations for very long.
The rain streamed across the windshield as we sped down the runway until the nose rose and the wings flexed. Airborne! With a light load of just under two hundred passengers, we climbed quickly to cruise and with no further delays we were on course for the tiny island off the coast of Portugal.
The route is not exactly the busiest in Europe. In fact, we heard only two other aircraft in the area during the entire trip. Traffic started to pick up again about ninety miles from Funchal. Air Berlin. Condor. LTU. Many charter airline callsigns can be heard the closer we got to Madeira Island. Of course, Air Portugal was lurking around. ATC cleared us for our descent and we circled over Porto Santo before turning southwest to Funchal. The cloud cover was thinly scattered into pockets around the islands. We maneuvered visually to Funchal and began circling for the approach to runway 05.
The airport is tucked away along the mountainside. The approach is short and fast. We turned towards the field, following the coast line. Tower cleared us for landing and we quickly made our final checks; the approach to the runway is deceiving. At 180 knots the water and beach pass under quickly but, we’re used to that. The tricky part is just before touchdown, the ground seems to rush up to you. The runway is two hundred feet above the beach. The ground rises just short of the runway with a road beneath it. It is that last moment just prior to setting down onto the runway you must concentrate.
The flight computer called altitude above ground, “500….. 400….. 100….. 50….. 40…. 30… 20.. 10.” I could nearly feel the main gear of the airplane compressing as the A330 settled onto the runway and we began to slow down the giant.
We made it! What a beautiful flight. But it’s not over. Because the runway is partially set on stilts, there is not enough room for a taxiway at the end. You must backtrack; it can be a busy little airport too.
No the Air Berlin 737-800 on final did have to go around. This A330 needs a great deal of space to turn around. We had to taxi to the end of the runway before we could turn around.
Flights to Madeira Island are among my favorite. I would like to visit this island for real someday.
We had the opportunity to see a company Airbus A320 depart Funchal on its way back to Lisbon later on that afternoon. There was also a EuroHolidays 737-400 that
paid a visit to Funchal.
