I was flying back to LaGuardia airport in New York City with my wife last week.  As we started to make our approach I started sharing trivia about the airport with her since she is not a native New Yorker.

For instance, the airport is the closet of the 3 NYC airports to Manhattan.  Also it was named after a NYC mayor and oh yea it is rated as one of the most dangerous airports in the US and yes it has the track record to prove it.  It has had multiple disasters.  The most recent was in 1994.

The reason why LaGuardia is more likely to have a disaster is that it is surrounded by water on 3 of its sides, so if you miss the runway you have a 75% chance of drowning assuming you did not die in the flaming wreckage.  The chances of missing the runway are also higher at this airport since it was built back in 1939 which means it has really short runways compared to todays standard.  If you are in a big plane it has a small margin of error.

Of course we were flying cross-country in a wide body plane (this fact was not lost on my wife).  We were on final approach and about 20 feet above the water approaching the runway just as I finish saying all these scary bits of trivia.  Suddenly we get thrown back in our seats and veer away from the runway as the pilot is applying full power since yup you guessed it he screwed up the landing and we almost got our feet wet.

I learned my lesson not to share scary trivia just before landing.