Where Else Shuts The Country's Main Road When A Plane Is About To Land?

Where else but the Pacific nation of Nauru! The airport runway is surrounded on both sides by the single road that runs all the way around the island, and so, because it is so close to where the planes land, traffic is stopped.

Having watched the process as I waited for my flight to leave, I can tell you that someone mans the gate just outside the airport, and when they receive a radio-ed message from the air traffic control tower, they close the gate.

Planes land on the strip which has ocean at either end of it, just after the main road, and rumour has it, just 50 metres to spare in terms of regulation length based on the class of planes that land.

Here is an Our Airlines plane landing, obscuring the parliament buildings on the island.

Once the plane has landed, and taxi-ed into the airport building, the road remains closed because the plane will off load people and cargo, then reload and take off again.

It's a pretty unique experience, and pretty amusing the first few times!