Taking pictures of Aircraft landing at Phuket from Mai Khao Beach

[Andrew Reeve]

I had started to write a piece on taking pictures of aircraft landing at Phuket from Mai Khao Beach, only to discover Thaigernews had published an article about it back in 2019.

https://thethaiger.com/news/phuket/phukets-perfect-plane-spotting-selfie

[Andrew Reeve]

The authorities were planning to put in place a  "safety zone"  under the flight path to prevent tourists from taking pictures too close to the planes. Did they go ahead with this plan in 2020 or 2021?

[Alice]

Going to have to plan a family holiday to a nearby hotel for a couple of days and enjoy the beach with hubby and son.

[Simon43]

Yonks ago, when I lived at Phuket Airport Hotel, (the first small hotel that I built near the airport), I used to ride my bike each day to the north end of Nai Yang beach, then wheel it past the end of the runway and then on towards Mai Khao beach.

In those days (around 2003-4), there was no security fence at the end of the runway - you could just walk onto the runway if you wished!

Each time I walked past the end of the runway, I would check for incoming planes, and wait until they had landed, since they flew VERY low over the sea and beach.

One afternoon, I did my walk/bicycle ride as usual. When I got to the end of the runway, I checked for incoming planes and - seeing none - started to walk along the beach next to the end of the runway.  The level of the beach was actually a few metres below the runway, so you couldn't peer down the runway.

As I was walking, I could hear a distant engine noise, that got louder and louder!  Suddenly, I realised that it was a large plane taking off, invisible to me because of the beach being below the runway level.

At that moment, a 747 or similar plane appeared at the end of the runway!!  Since there was no fence, many larger planes would use the whole length of the runway and take off into the ether as the beach dropped away below them (I saw a huge Russian cargo plane do this previously!.

I literally threw myself onto the beach.  I have no idea how low that plane flew over me, but I swear that I could read the small serial numbers on the tyres!! :)

Soon after that, walking across the end of the runway was banned, because too many people were standing right at the end of the runway (on the beach), and taking photos as the planes landed - which was no doubt somewhat disconcerting for the pilots....