Just my take but to close for comfort and hearing loss.

Nobody is holding their ears!! Then, wouldn't beach goers have been blown all over the place??? I suspect Photo-Shop type deal here.

Google: St. Maarten airport

At this stage of approach, the engine noise would be minimal with the current generation of aircraft, wake turbulence may make one stumble. On take off on that beach, another ball game!

Once, at LHR, I was blown of my feet and got slight burns by standing by the fence directly behind BA Concorde ( 27L ) as the afterburner kicked in.....I learned a big lesson that day.

St Martin. No PhotoShop. Cool airport for plane watching but I betcha the watcher gets a facefull of sand!

S.O.P. at this airport. runway is pretty short. so being high and landing long are a bad idea.

People should have been blown away!

Excellent composition and shot! I would really like to go there!

No hearing loss, and no Photoshop needed. I have spent many hours in the same spot. I could live on Maho Beach!

GUYS THEY GET BLOWN AWAY WHEN THE PLANES TAKEOFF NOT WHEN THEY LAND

Muito linda esta foto!! Espetacular mesmo. Parabéns!!

There is a "rite of passage" to hold onto the fence during take-offs without being blown away.
Go look on Youtube for dozens of videos of Saint Juliana airport in St. Maarten to see both landings and takeoffs

looks like the united tail :)

This livery honestly is a united knockoff, always throws me off haha

It is very similar to Continental's globe logo adopted in 1991 (now adorning the UCH fleet)... but Copa was 49% owned by Continental in 1998 when Copa switched to this in 1999.

Well we know the photo was taken sometime after June of 2010 as the gentleman in the green shirt located lower-right seems to be capturing the landing on his white iPhone 4. I guess it could be a few months earlier if he is an Apple engineer conducting device abuse testing :)

Nice picture.....!

So United. Much close.

wow that is so close nice picture wow

Well, As Far as I am concerned, The take-off is much louder than the landing,

Because the engines need to start up, then comes the long roll of the aircraft (in this case, a 737-800)

So the landing is much quieter, because the noise is over you for a little while,

then dicapates when the aircraft moves away from you.

And, no. The Beach-goers would not have been blown away by the engines because of the angle of attack. If you look at the beachers on the far Left side of the picture are already fighting the "Wind" but the people under the plane are fine (for now) Because the back of the engines have not gotten infront of the road on the right of the beach.

very good

Either you know the airport or you don't.

It's from the beach right behind St. Maarten airport.

Duhhhhhh.