Letter from London|Kai Tak Memories
When you sweep into Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport, you can’t fail to be impressed by the grandeur of the location. Rightly regarded as one of the world’s most spectacular airports, its setting, in the sea, nestling against the mountainous spine of Lantau, is breath-taking. But a whole younger generation of Hong Kong residents and visitors will never experience the spine-tingling thrill of landing at the former airport – Kai Tak – which really had no right to be an airport at all.
For a start, Mr Ho Kai and Mr Au Tak, after whom the district is named, were merely aiming, in the early 1920s, to reclaim some land from the harbor for profitable commercial development. When their scheme flopped, the Government stepped in and designated the area for an airport. At that time even they would have had no idea how Hong Kong would flourish and how the demand for air travel would grow exponentially. Kai Tak, hemmed in by the mountains of Kowloon, and with a runway surrounded on three sides by water, would implausibly become the third largest airport in the world for passenger throughput. In 1958, when the runway was extended to meet international standards, the airport was designed to cater to 24 million passengers a year. By 1996 it was handling 29.5 million.
I could never forget my first arrival into Kai Tak, back in the late 1970s. Nervous expectation at moving across the world to begin a new life was compounded at the first sight of Hong Kong’s famous harbor and skyscrapers. If that wasn’t enough, the descent into the airport was enough to make me catch my breath and grip tenaciously onto the sides of my seat. Gliding towards the harbor was already shredding my nerves, but when the plane aimed itself directly at the hills of Kowloon, I think I shut my eyes. Then came that infamous forty-five degree turn as the plane banked sharply to the right, skimming past two thousand feet high peaks and aligning itself with that pencil-thin runway. Our landing platform jutted out into the harbor like an invitation to a certain plunge into a watery destination.
There might have been a temporary relief as I realized we were descending gently into a safe arrival, until I noticed that we seemed to be brushing the tops of the homes of Mong Kok. I had read beforehand that this was one of the most densely populated urban concentrations in the world, and now I was getting a close-up view of it! Previous travellers asserted that you could see the TV sets in the homes of the upper floors as you sailed regally by, and now I found their wild claims to be frighteningly true. Finally, a smooth enough landing and stop, without getting our feet wet. What a heart-stopping moment of relief and joy. I had made it!
What were my first impressions of this new home as I exited the plane onto the steps down to the tarmac? A feeling of being suddenly engulfed in a tsunami of light, heat and humidity, the likes of which I had never experienced before. I shielded by eyes and took a deep breath, before sensing another overpowering presence – the Kai Tak nullah was welcoming me with its unique odour of sweet detritus. As the years went by and I returned many times to Kai Tak, I looked forward to these sensations, which signalled my return to the place that had become home, and whose electric vibrancy I missed when away.
Not long after settling in Hong Kong, one of my first jobs was teaching at a well-known school in Kowloon Tong, not far from the airport. It was a temporary summer job, and the seasonal heat meant that classrooms were cooled only by fans and wide-open windows -- air-conditioning being a luxury ill-afforded by such establishments. I learnt very quickly in my first days there that we had to accommodate the frequent interruption of our noisy neighbor. Every ten minutes or so, yet another plane would roar past our school, causing such a row that the lesson would be paused while it passed. At the same time the students would pin down the pens, pencils or other loose objects on their desks to prevent them being shaken off by the accompanying vibrations. Whilst I found it disconcerting, my pupils just stoically dealt with it and carried on.
Kai Tak’s challenge to the pilots using it was such that landing by auto-pilot was forbidden. Pilots had to undertake strict simulator training before they were allowed to descend onto the runway using only their manual skills. It was said that because of the potential risk, flyers were extremely careful so that Kai Tak was relatively safe. But let’s not over romanticize it. Over the course of its history there were a number of crashes, which all together led to 270 fatalities. The accident I most remember happened in 1993, when a China Airlines jet, trying to land in typhoon conditions, overshot the runway and slid into the harbor. It made international headline news, but miraculously only seven people suffered minor injuries. It had 396 passengers on board.
For me and many others, who experienced Kai Tak, it is like a remembered old friend, who had been at once thrilling but slightly menacing -- whose company you no longer have or need. Our new friend at Chek Lap Kok is a lot more sophisticated and comforting…..but rather bland in comparison.
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