stinsonjr

Hey guys - the sad overrun in Hondurus last week had me thinking. How hairy is it to land a transport category jet at this airport? I have seen the Youtube video's and it certainly looks wild, and that was on a good day - can't imagine it with how the weather sounded on the Taca deal. So, who amongst the old salts here has experience going in there with big iron, and what is it like? How does this stack up to other difficult approaches? Was Kai-Tek worse than Toncontin?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

coyote

Never did Kai-Tek, but Tuguch is sporty. They trimmed a mountain on approach and resurfaced the rwy several years ago which made it a little less interesting. Like any other approach, as long as you don't mind going around if you are not in the slot, it's perfectly safe and comfortable. By the way, all the airlines I have flown with have a charted visual procedure with 2 or 3 checkpoints for altitude. Also, I have only landed the 72 and Lear there and they both stop on a dime.

poorpilot

I was flying into TNT with frequency until unfortunately this accident happened. At our company the engineers along with jeppessen have even made a chart that allows you to configure on schedule and fly the approach with vnav/lnav flight director guidance, making much easier. Ofcourse the the biggest challenge on this approach is the inertia, and if your not correctly configured at the appropriate altitudes and checkpoints, then it all goes to
s#!t. On the final turn when you have to get into the "ditch" you come within -300' laterally of the houses and the hills(i'm guesstimating). Once you level the bank and try to line-up, you almost always end-up with the plane drifting to the right(inertia) and at first it's confusing to have to keep putting left bank in-and-out and simultaneously descend until the threshold. Touching down any distance past the first taxiway is mandatory go-around due to the much higher risk of overruning. Also, just like in GUA, rwy 02 has a 1.0% grade (down slope) and that influences quite a bit in trying to break the ground-effect to precisely land just shy of the taxiway. Also the little kids around the houses with slingshots don't help either!!

Hope this helps STINSON.

And may god bless the dead, injured, families and friends of all that were involved in the TACA-390 accident.RIP.

-PP

stinsonjr

Thanks for the replies - yeah, sounds sporty indeed! Have they shut Toncontin down for all airline traffic?

poorpilot

Yeah for now. I just heard from the company that the operation now i going to be to some military airport about 60kilometers away.