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Madeira Airport , formerly known as ''Santa Catarina Airport'' and informally known as ''Funchal Airport'', is an international airport in the civil parish of Santa Catarina, municipality of Santa Cruz, in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. The airport was once infamous for its short runway which, surrounded by high mountains and the ocean, made it a tricky landing for even the most experienced of pilots. Its innovative solution allowed Funchal to receive the ''Outstanding Structure Award'' in 2004 by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering,〔http://www.iabse.org/IABSE/association/Organisation_files/Outstanding_Structure_Award/Funchal_Airport_Extension__Madeira_Island__Portugal_.aspx〕 which aims at recognizing the most remarkable, innovative, creative or otherwise stimulating structure completed within the last few years.〔http://www.iabse.org/IABSE/association/Award_files/Outstanding_Structure_Award/OStrA.aspx〕 Nevertheless, it is still considered one of the most dangerous airports in the world.〔http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/9002352/The-worlds-scariest-airport-landings-videos.html〕 ==History== Madeira Airport was officially opened on 18 July 1964, with two runways. The first flight ever to land was a TAP Air Portugal Lockheed Constellation with 80 passengers on board. In 1972, the popularity of visiting the island of Madeira increased, so the runway had to be extended to allow modern and larger aircraft to land. Considered the Kai Tak of Europe because of its singular approach to runway 05,〔(10 Most Dangerous Landing Strips in the World )〕 the decision was made to extend the existing runway, instead of building a new one. In the meantime, a brand new terminal was built at the airport in 1973, handling 500,000 passengers. Between 1982 and 1986, Madeira's runway was successfully extended by to a total of , and also four gates were opened. The original runway was only long, but was extended by 8 years after the TAP Portugal Flight 425 crash of 1977. In 2000, the runway was again extended this time to almost doubling the size of the original runway. As landfill was not a realistic option, the extension was built on a platform, partly over the ocean, supported by 180 columns, each about tall. The extension of Madeira Airport was conducted by the Brazilian construction company Andrade Gutierrez, and is recognized worldwide as one of the most difficult to achieve due to the type of terrain and orography. The new runway and terminal were inaugurated on 6 October 2002, and to mark the occasion an Air-Atlantic Iceland Boeing 747-267B, registration TF-ABA, landed at the airport.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Old Memories – 747 in Madeira – Rui Sousa, Looking through the glass )〕 Although this was a rare event, some TAP Portugal flights make scheduled stops at Madeira with wide bodied A330-200 aircraft, on the Lisbon-Caracas-Lisbon route. In 2004, Dr. Manabu Ito, President of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE), presented the IABSE Outstanding Structure Award in Shanghai: the enlargement of the new runway at Funchal Airport, won the 2004 Outstanding Structure Award (considered the Oscars of worldwide structural engineering),〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Outstanding Structure Award )〕 by the IABSE.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Outstanding Structure Award )〕 The History Channel program ''Most Extreme Airports'' ranked it as the 9th most dangerous airport in the world, and the third most dangerous in Europe after Gibraltar International Airport and Courchevel Altiport. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Madeira Airport」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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