A first-person YouTube video transcript of Nate Buchanan and companions visiting Maho ("Airplane") Beach on the Dutch side of Saint Martin. The speakers describe plane-spotting (close low landings and powerful jet blasts), their sensory reactions, crowd behavior, and a safety note that a fatality occurred in 2017 after a jet-blast incident. The transcript includes on-site details (specific airlines and aircraft types mentioned, crowd reactions, and a beach-bar pizza interlude).
Questions this video answers
2017
Chapters
Today we are on the island of Saint Martin. It is a very unique island in the Caribbean because it is half owned by the French and half by the Dutch. And we are on the Dutch side.
Which is home to the most popular tourist attraction on the entire island and one that we have personally been looking forward to coming to for so long. Some of you may know it by.
Its nickname, Airplane beach.
Oh, my goodness. That was crazy.
That was so close.
Since we've been looking forward to coming here for so long, I've really been nerding out this morning. I've been checking all of the different flight tracking websites to see which plane is arriving when making little notes to make sure we don't miss the big planes that we really want to see. It seems like the majority of those are showing up between one and three. And it's lunchtime now, so we're heading to the beach.
I hear one.
No.
We missed it.
Oh, it got here early.
This.
This isn't the beach. So that was the A330 from KLM. That's one of two of the biggest planes that are arriving today.
Oh, I'm so mad.
At least we saw it from here.
Okay, we're almost there. It's about to get good.
Wow.
Airplane beach. Oh, my goodness.
That was crazy.
That was nuts.
That was just a small one.
I wish you could feel my heart right now.
I was so scared.
I thought my head was gonna get knocked off.
You guys, don't.
So we've just arrived to the beach. As you can see, it's a pretty popular place, but I just want to set the scene for what's going to be happening today. So over here to my left, we have the very end of the Runway. And then all the planes are just going to be coming in from right over the ocean, just right over the top of our head. And the first big plane that should be arriving here any minute is the Delta 757 from Atlanta.
The first big plane is about to land, and Nate has dared me to try to stand up the whole time. I don't know if I could do it. I'm going to try. We're right in the middle of the Runway. Oh, I shouldn't have turned around.
I'm so scared. I think I can do.
Wow, that is so big.
Oh, my God.
It was so big. It was so big. You can, like, feel it.
This should be the United 737 coming in next.
Oh, that was an American point. My schedule's just so off.
Oh, gosh.
That's so Incredible to see so close up.
Like, we fly on an airplane every single week, and you would think that it just would be normal, but I'm.
Just fascinated with these machines.
The beach has already gotten so much more crowded since we arrived.
They're coming in by the bus load.
But I just don't feel like you can truly get a perspective of just how close the planes are coming. We're trying to move and show a side angle, and maybe that'll do it a little more justice.
Sam.
It's.
It's.
Okay. So there's two separate experiences that you have on this beach. You have the planes landing over your head, and then the second experience that you have is the jet blast coming from the planes. The biggest plane of the day that just landed. The KLM A330 is about to take off. Everybody's lined up behind it to feel the power of the engines. We've both taken our sunglasses off because I've literally seen people's sunglasses get ripped off their face and broken in half.
I'm so nervous.
Seriously, you can already feel it.
This is gonna be bad.
The wind that we're experiencing right now is just the engine idling. I've seen videos, but I think this is one of the things that you just can't be prepared for.
I'm not prepared.
Oh, my gosh. That was crazy. His head was hurting. I literally.
I didn't see anything. I just had to shut my eyes off.
I did, too. I turned, running towards the ocean. Everybody was screaming like people. There's just parties everywhere.
Everything flew into the ocean.
Everybody's laying down.
There are hats everywhere.
Everybody's, like, at least 10ft back from where they started.
That was hilarious.
Oh, that really hurt.
My legs are burning from that sand.
Ollie is still going.
Wow.
That was insane.
I'm trying to think of something to compare that feeling to a hurricane. Oh, wow.
Wow.
That was way cooler than watching them come in.
Now that I've experienced it myself, I'm really having a hard time believing that this beach is even allowed to exist. We're out here having fun, but at the same time, it can actually be really dangerous. In 2017, there was a lady who died because you used to be able to go up and hang on this fence, and everybody get as close to the jet blast as they could. She actually got blown into the road and then later died in a hospital. So for that reason, you're not allowed to hang on the fence anymore. It basically just made the whole crowd move back, like, 20ft onto the beach.
So there's this little beach bar at the end of the airplane beach, and it's really unique because the pizza is all, like, plain themed. So we're trying to decide between the layover pizza or the airplane. So fun. So cheesy. Literally.
I went with the layover pizza. Pesto, pine nuts and garlic. This is a whole separate experience that's almost just as fun. We can still see the planes, and watching the people on the beach get blown over when one takes off is hilarious. More fun than being on the beach.
I think.
It'S delicious.
Is it going to take off now?
Oh, yeah. It's got to go down.
Used to be able to go all the way up to this fence and hold on as the. What is it?
What is it called?
Yeah.
All the sand was stuck to my Chapstick right after.
