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Their flight was fast approaching Catalina Island. The airport, perched on the crest of the island, had never been one of Miranda’s favorites. Its primary asset was that there was no regular commercial air service to the island, so accidents here were rarely called in to her department.
The general aviation group, however, received a disproportionate numbers of calls here.
Instead of a long, flat safety area at either end of the runway to accommodate early landings and overshoots, there were steep cliffs. A sudden downdraft, quite common across the rounded island top, could make someone land in the cliff face propeller-first, rather than on the runway. Required approaches were steep and precise.
Also, the runway itself actually draped over the crest of the island’s highest point. On
