Then & now: flights, camera, action

For five decades, Kai Tak airport was Hong Kong's principal entry and exit point - and home to one of the world's most dramatic landings. After steadily descending over sea and islands, aircraft came in - on the usual western approach - directly across Sham Shui Po's densely crowded tenements before banking over Kowloon Tong and dropping down again over Kowloon City.

By then, planes were only a couple of hundred feet above the rooftops. Passengers could peer into the kitchen windows of the walled city below and speculate as to what Mrs Chan was cooking for dinner. It felt that close.

Television aerials were skimmed, and then - moments later - the wheels touched down and the harbour was alongside the aircraft windows. Even before the doors opened, the unmistakable smell of Hong Kong (or, more accurately, the overpowering stench from the viscous, bubbling blackness of what passed for water in the Kai Tak Nullah) hit passengers full in the nostrils. Nice to be home again - but, man alive, what a pong!

Children from nearby buildings used to sit in the airport arrivals and departures hall and do their homework. Air-conditioned in the summer - unlike their homes - for two generations of Hong Kong students, this space was significantly less crowded and noisy than at home.

Fire hydrants located on various approaches to the airport are much larger than those in other parts of the city, with multiple attachments. A worst-case civil-emergency situation, regularly practised for by joint military/ civilian response teams, involved a fully laden jumbo jet mistaking Argyle Street (or some other Kowloon thoroughfare) for the runway.

Fortunately, this horror story never happened. But fatal mishaps, such as when an aircraft overshot the runway and ended in the harbour, as well as a variety of near-miss incidents, were more commonplace than the local aviation sector (even today) would be prepared to admit.