Why didn't planes land from the sea in the old Kai Tak Hong Kong airport?
Reading up on the old Hong Kong airport Kai Tak, I'm left with the question as to why the planes didn't land from the sea?


It's a small point, but Kai Tak was not next to the open sea but rather alongside Victoria Harbor. Most of the rwy 31 final approach was over the harbor but with mountainous terrain on either side. The rwy 13 final approach was over Hong Kong island, then Victoria Harbor, then Kowloon.

Both rwy 13 and rwy 31 were used for takeoffs and landings depending on the wind, and winds in Hong Kong were often strong right down to ground/water level. Generally the prevailing winds favored rwy 13. By that I mean that when tracking the runway just before touchdown or when taking off you would have a headwind component. However, because most of the time there was a crosswind, it often meant that when approaching for landing but before you made the 47 degree right turn from the IGS course to short final, you had a tailwind component.

Both runways could be very turbulent. If ceiling and visibility were poor, that always meant a rwy 13 approach, at least that was my experience. The worst turbulence, though, was in severe clear conditions to rwy 31 when the wind was coming off the Chinese mainland.

I have a blog item about operating into Kai Tak on my website. You can look at it here.