MadeiraFlight

Madeira Airport (FNC / LPMA)

Cristiano Ronaldo Madeira International Airport — one of the most dramatic airports in the world, with a runway extended out over the Atlantic on 180 columns and a curving approach that has made it famous.

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Madeira's main gateway, near Santa Cruz about 13–16 km from Funchal. Famous for its terrain-forced curving approach, severe wind shear, and a runway extended in 2000 on a column-supported platform over the sea. The fourth-busiest airport in Portugal.

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A short timeline

  1. 8 July 1964 Madeira Airport opens at Santa Cruz The airport (then called Santa Catarina) opens with a single, dangerously short 1,600 m runway hemmed between the mountains and the Atlantic.
  2. 131 killed TAP Flight 425 disaster A TAP Boeing 727 overruns the short, wet runway, falls down an embankment and breaks apart, killing 131 of 164 aboard — the catalyst for extending the runway.
  3. 36 killed SATA Flight 730 lost on approach Just a month after Flight 425, a SATA (Geneva) Caravelle descends below minima and flies into the sea near Funchal; 36 of 57 aboard die.
  4. 1,800 m Runway extended to 1,800 m A first extension, inaugurated by President António Ramalho Eanes, lengthens the runway to 1,800 m — still too short for many jets.
  5. 2,781 m The runway-on-stilts opens The famous second extension opens to traffic, lengthening the runway to 2,781 m — its final ~1,020 m carried on a platform supported by ~180 columns over the sea and a ravine. The runway is redesignated 05/23.
  6. 6 October 2002 New Madeira Airport terminal opens A new, larger passenger terminal opens, completing the airport's modernisation.
  7. 2004 IABSE Outstanding Structure Award The runway-extension platform wins the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering's Outstanding Structure Award — the 'Oscars of structural engineering'.
  8. 1,020 m Guinness World Record Guinness World Records recognises Madeira as the airport with the longest bridge-supported runway extension, at 1,020 m.
  9. 29 March 2017 Renamed after Cristiano Ronaldo The airport is rebranded Cristiano Ronaldo Madeira International Airport at a ceremony Ronaldo attends — and the unveiling of an unflattering bronze bust becomes a global meme.
  10. 15 June 2018 The mocked Ronaldo bust is replaced About 15 months after the ridicule, the first bust is quietly swapped for a more conventional, realistic likeness.
  11. late 2024 New wind-detection system NAV Portugal rolls out a new wind-detection system (X-band radar plus LIDAR) to better predict the wind shear that drives go-arounds and diversions.
  12. Newark (EWR) First-ever nonstop US route United Airlines launches the first scheduled nonstop service between the US and Madeira — Newark to Funchal on a Boeing 737 MAX 8, summer-seasonal, resumed and expanded for 2026.

Accidents

Madeira's two fatal commercial jet losses both happened in 1977, on the dangerously short original runway. There has been no fatal commercial accident since — read the full record:

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