Maho Beach

Found out about this yesterday after seeing a Josef Hoflehner photograph (the black-and-white one below) posted on A Time To Get. Admittedly, it's got planes, white sand tropical beaches, and girls in bikinis, so it was hard not to notice



The photo was taken at Maho Beach, a beach on St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles in the Carribean. I'll let Wikipedia do the rest:

The place is known worldwide because of the Princess Juliana International Airport that is situated immediately adjacent to the beach.
Incoming air traffic ... have to touch down as close as possible to the beginning of runway 10 due to the short runway length of 2,180 metres/7,152 ft,[1] resulting in low-flying aircraft on their final approach over the beach. Due to these low flying airplanes (including large passenger airliners such as the Boeing 747), the location is very popular with plane spotters.


This photo from February 2008 by airmedia gives you a better idea of just how close these planes are. Click the picture to expand and look at the shadow of the plane, especially the wingtip.

Isn't that Mr. Ecko's drug plane from "Lost?"

No, these aren't photoshopped.