Don't usually get to see this angle at St. Maarten, wind usually going the other way. Normal approach is over the water, and take off in the same direction, towards the center of the island. In fact, you have to juke on takeoff to avoid the mountains (see in the backdrop of this video), which is rather troublesome in a large jetliner. Made more so by the fact the runway at St. Maarten is only 7,150 ft. Of note, the recommended take off length for the fully laden 747 is around 10k feet (it is less, but that is what they recommend), so you can bet those aren't fully loaded. And if you have an engine failure, even just a single, your boned...can't abort, can't fly.

Only place I can imagine that happening is the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean. But that looked nothing like St. Maarten. Check out this picture of a plane flying into St. Maarten airport. (Yes, it's real).

That's pretty good for flying over a residence, but St Maarten still is teh winnar!

http://www.videosift.com/video/747-Landing-StMaarten