Flyers prefer soft landings when arriving at their destinations. The airport in Barra, Scotland guarantees that to tourists visiting the islet of 1,300 residents.
The light aircraft serving the Glasgow to Barra and vice versa route touches down on a beach landing strip. Rolling on sand, however, requires special skills for pilots as they can land small planes only manually instead of on autopilot.
Also, landing and taking off can only be done during low tide. Another safety challenge is that the airfield has no lights so the pilots need to be always alert.
While the Barra airstrip may seem strange, one runway at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia, USA seems macabre for those in the know.
Embedded on busy Runway 10 are two gravestones marked with the names of Richard and Catherine Dotson.
“We consider the Dotsons to be part of our airport family, and we’re happy to have markers honoring them as an important part of our history,” airport spokesperson Lori Lynah told Fox Weather.
According to the airport’s website, the Dotsons’ family “wished for the graves to remain in place” when the runway was expanded during World War II.
Two other gravestones with the names of Daniel Hueston and John Dotson are in another part of the airport.
The area used to be the Dotson family farm before it was bought by the government, including the Dotson family’s private cemetery that had more than 100 graves.
