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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Sean Murphy

Clip shows plane coming in to land at Barra airport's beautiful beach runway

A holidaying Scot has captured a wonderful clip showing a plane coming in to land at Barra airport's beautiful beach landing strip.

Geoff Paterson, 47, who was visiting the island from Eriskay, spotted the Twin Otter plane's approach.

The Glen Garioch Distillery worker from Turriff in Aberdeenshire was cycling round Barra when he captured the clip.

Barra Airport. (Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Geoff said: "It was amazing to see the plane come in to land, I think it’s only one of two sites in the world where it lands on the sand."

Barra's short-runway airport is found on the norther tip of the island, which lies off the southern coast of South Uist.

Planes arriving there, land on the wide shallow bay of Traigh Mhor.

The Outer Hebrides airport is unique in that it is the only one in the world where scheduled flights use a tidal beach as the runway.

Opened in 1936, the only flights to and from the airport come from Glasgow.

Intriguingly the flights are dictated by the tides, with the runways under the sea at high tide.

Landing on the wet sand and seeing the spray from the wheels on touch down is pretty thrilling for any traveller visiting the island.

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