The famous Madeira Funchal Airport offers by far one of the most difficult approaches to fly among european airports. Altough the final approach sequence on this cockpit view recording doesn't look to difficult and the landing distance available (LDA) is 2481m, which is pretty sufficient, pilots still need special simulator and line training to be accepted to fly it. The reason for this is the location of the runway in relation to high terrain where stronger winds create moderate to severe turbulence consiting of: up and downdrafts, rotors and windshear making it hard to maintain a stabilized approach. Conditions were fairly calm on this particular day and everything went well, nevertheless caution is advised.
