is there a airplane runway in the middle of the atlantic?

Question

my mate says his wife was a air hostess and has landed there is she winding him up?

Answer 1

I rather suspect a touch of day-dreaming has taken place somewhere along the line ! ! !

Answer 2

Middle of Atlantic is very general. There lots of runways and airports in the Atlantic.
The Bahamas are in the Atlantic. The Azores, belong to Portugal, are approx 800 miles off coast of Portugal. They have two runways large enough for commercial aircraft on the islands of Terceria and Sao Miguel.
USAF has base on Terceria, Lajes Field. It is a routine refueling stop for AF and Navy.

Answer 3

There are two mid-Atlantic diversion airfields in regular use - Lajes in the Azores and Bermuda. Both are relatively remote, but not more than about 1.5 hours flight time from the mainland.

If your mate's air hostess friend had diverted into either of these airports she probably would have thought it was in the middle of the Atlantic cos they generally have no idea where they are anyway

Answer 4

Ascension Island maybe. At the time of the Falklands War (1981) it handled more planes than Chicago or London Heathrow for a few days. It is pretty much in the middle of the Atlantic and is a big military base.

Answer 5

I am sure she is referrring to the Azores Islands. They are closer to the European continent than the U.S., but it would not be a huge stretch to say they were in the middle of the Atlantic. And yes, there is an airport on the main island. It was the site of a horrific on the ground crash between two aircraft some years ago. If you fly from Newfoundland to Portugal, the Azores would be a natural refueling site. I have been there several times. The islands are beautiful and very peaceful. Some of the islands in the chain have very few people on them.

Answer 6

She is winding him up. The is no land in the middle of the Atlantic. Also aircraft flying between Britain and the US, generally fly up the the length of Britain, over Greenland across a part of the Arctic then down Canada into the US. This gives aircraft somewhere to put down in an emergency. If an aircraft should develop problems whilst crossing the Atlantic directly it will be in deep doo doo's.

Answer 7

There's the Azore's , and there is Iceland (Reykjavik), which is south of Greenland.
Aircraft Carriers can't recover (land) airliners because the airliner doesn't have a tail-hook to catch the wire, and the aircraft carrier's runway is only a quarter mile long.
And it's agaist Navy Regulations. If an aircraft lands on a carrier, and it doesn't have "U.S. Navy" painted or stecilled on it, that aircraft will be pushed overboard and left to sink.

Answer 8

Proposed airport is on the island of St Helena in South Atlantic but not yet operational.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Helena_Airport
Only other place nearby is Ascension Island which is only basically an RAF staging post, so it may just be possible that she landed there, maybe something to do with the Falklands Campaign?

Answer 9

Lages, Azores, the Bermuda airport....both are close to the the "Middle" of the Atlantic. Lages was a fun stop, I stopped there on a MAC flight back from Iraq!

Answer 10

Actually there is. The Azores islands are in the middle of the atlantic. I would imagine they would have an air strip for emergency landings.

Answer 11

Atlantic flights usually fly the northern orbital route and do not literally cross the Atlantic.

In older days before they had the range to do the trip to the USA in one hop, they used to refuel in Greenland (nealy half way)