Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport is an airport on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba.OverviewThe airport, named after the Aruban Minister Juancho Irausquin, has one of the shortest commercial runways in the world, only 400m long, flanked on one side by high hills, with cliffs that drop into the sea at both ends. Although the airport is closed to jet traffic, regional airline propeller aircraft are able to land there under waivers from The Netherlands Antilles' Civil Aviation Authority. The most common aircraft to land there are the Twin Otter and BN-2 Islander.HistoryThe idea of building an airport on Saba is credited to Remy de Haenen, who brought the idea to the Saba Economic Council along with a contractor named Jacques Deldevert. De Haenen had previously made several landings of a Vought-Sikorsky OS2U seaplane off Fort Bay harbor as early as 1946. After surveying the island by air, de Haenen suggested then-privately-owned Flat Point as the site for the airport. The land was cleared and graded in only a couple weeks. De Haenen made the first landing of an aircraft on the island of Saba on February 9, 1959 with nearly the entire population of the island in attendance.After that first landing, de Haenen was prohibited from making further landings on the island and there were no flights to or from Saba for several years. In the lead up to the 1962 parliamentary elections, the lack of an airport on the island became a big issue. Sint Maarten politician Claude Wathey, who also represented Saba in the Parliament of the Netherland Antilles, and Aruban politician Juancho Irausquin, who was at the time Minister of Finance for the Netherland Antilles, supported the construction of an airport. The Dutch government made 600,000 guilders available to build it as part of a larger 3-year plan for the Windward Islands. Irausquin told friends that during a harrowing voyage to Saba by sloop in 1960 he promised to look for funds to build an airport on the island if his life was spared.