So I looked it up and Paro Airport (VQPR) has a single instrument approach, a VOR/DME approach. The airport itself is at 6500ft and surrounded by 16kft mountains. The "hills" in the video are around 5k'ft, significant enough to worry about spiraling updrafts. The terrain itself makes "safe minimum" approach impossible, safe min is an industry standard for the min and max speeds, bank and rotation angles, and decent rate...there are more, but those ones specifically HAVE to be violated to make a landing at this airport. That means, every landing violates the minimum industry standard for what constitutes a safe landing. The flight path takes in you in parallel to the Himalayas, which must be a sight to see. going to load up the simulator and see if I can make it in a medium size jet.

And if you think landing is bad, check out the takeoff table

>> ^Lendl:

I don't see the problem. I know it's not a Cessna but looked like they had lots of room and the weather looked beautiful.
Still cool location tho


Banking into a mountain at low speeds is very tricky. Hills and mountains can generate updrafts which planes can't generate much lift from, the only cure is wide open throttle. At that altitude, given the extreme danger of updraft, is very precarious. In addition, a 180 degree bank at low speed, given updrafts and terrain is VERY scary. Banking 100 feet before touchdown over a river (rivers can generate crosswinds because of the temp gradient for water), anyone who has landed at BWI can tell you how fun it is to land with 40 mile an hour crosswinds. Furthermore, the runway was not visible on final because of the hill, you only catch a glimpse ones you clear the last marker, and that was in good weather! Also, the missed approach has to rapidly take you back to 16k, to avoid MOUNTAINS! I couldn't tell from the chart, it was bouncing around, but I would imagine it also don't have ILS or DME equipment on any part of the final.

That's the A2, Germany's most important east-west traverse, infamous for traffic jams and accidents and with one of the highest volumes of traffic in this country. This was actually 73 different accidents involving a total of 259 cars, 66 injured, 21 severly, 10 life threatening, none dead so far. It happened within 20 minutes over a 30km stretch between Peine and Braunschweig.

The video said that rain is supposed to be the cause, but that's not all. It was a combination of the sudden onset of heavy rain, the setting sun and dark black tar on the road itself. In some circumstances, you literally can't see shit on the A2 east of Hannover thanks to that bloody tar, because it reflects just about everything.

And yes, people drive like loonies. Everyone has his/her vice and that's ours.

PS: I marked the stretch of Autobahn via Google Maps if anyone wants to take a look: link

I'm not advocating or decrying the actions taken by the police, but Thursday was a rough day in Howard County. There was a bank robbery that morning in Clarksville on Ten Oaks road, which is a couple exits from where this incident concluded. The bank robbers shot a bank employee, led police in a cross-county car and foot chase (apparently right by where I work! I've got to get a window office), and fired upon officers during the foot chase. One of the suspects was killed during the chase. Article in the Columbia Flier.

There was also a followup article in the Baltimore Sun today concerning Zombro's incident. The officer has been put on administrative leave as part of an investigation. Zombro "was wanted on an open warrant for theft. He had been under surveillance and fled from police when they tried to stop him in Jessup on Thursday afternoon, police said." The article details the charges against Zombro from this incident:

• six counts of second-degree assault
• one count of assaulting a law enforcement officer
• one count of reckless endangerment
• four drug possession charges
• four counts of malicious destruction of property

I've mapped out where Zombro's incident started and stopped here. I don't know Zombro's exact route (and I'm pretty sure he didn't take the quickest way to get here as suggested by Google ), but he certainly was on some major roads in the area. While driving, Zombro had to go over I-95, the major north-south highway in the area. The article reference in this post notes that he made a U-turn on route 32, which means he was headed west on route 32, which most likely means he had gone over route 29 once and was headed back to it. Route 29 is the other major north-south highway in this area. Both the bank robbers and Zombro were on route 32 on Thursday.

For the curious, I grew up in Columbia and live a county away now. I drive the road where this happened to get to my parents.