Flying Into Vestmannaeyjar (BIVM), One of Iceland’s Most Challenging Airports
25 February 2018 | Updated on October 16, 2026
Welcome to Vestmannaeyjar, 63°25′30″N 020°16′45″W, and home to one of Iceland’s most challenging fly-in!
BIVM sits on the island of Heimaey, located 4 nm off the south coast of the main island. It is the archipelago’s biggest and only inhabited grounds, surrounded by honeycombed walls of puffin nests, hyperactive volcano cones, and the glacially high waves of the Atlantic ocean bathing in a subpolar oceanic climate.
It’s sublime in daylight, enthralling at sundown and eerie at night.
The airport itself features two asphalt-stabilized gravel runways 03-21 and 12-30, with a respective slope of 0.2% and 0.7%. The light slope remains comfortable in both cases, occasionally bringing some positivity into the landing should the edge and center lines play trick to the eyes!
Runway 30 is particularly famous for the 90m-steep cliff fringing the threshold, a real arcade game in three-dimensions. The islands born from this volcanic hotpot are sandwiched in alternating layers of tuff and lava, their crispy crusts on display as soon as they rise over the water. All eyes are immediately drawn to the geological ground-show below, and as soon as the airplane breaks through the clouds, this Pandora box shines dauntingly with promises of shrills and delights.
In BIVM, departing from the glideslope quickly becomes critical, all variables coming briskly into play to create the siege for a head-on collision on approach and a quick sink into cold, rabid waters on departure or go-around. Both runways are over 1000 m long, enough for comfort, but never too much to forego staying alert.
The weather on this unknown little island is infamous, with records to break each time the polar depressions decide to spill down our coasts. Stórhöfði, a peninsula at the southernmost point of Heimaey, is claimed to be the windiest place in Europe, and holds the record for the lowest on land observation of air pressure on our continent (2 December 1929 – 923.6 hPa). (By the way, Stórhöfði, “black cape” is the Icelandic term for Darth Vader. The Force is definitely strong down there!).
With 20+ knots an everyday climatic expectation, gusts over 50 as soon as Njord awakes, 70 and above in the dead of winter, bumps are in the air on this basaltic Death Star replica!
Crowned by the crests of the Southern Icelandic Volcanic Zone, the final for 30 (and to a lesser extent, 03) can become particularly turbulent. Caught swinging in rotors, an argentic world tumbling upside down, every pilot synaptic bridge firing bright, it takes healthy doses of skills, and manic shots of fun, to glide your bird onto the asphalt.
Departing on a misty morning, or a bright wintery night, BIVM will also surprise by its aura of calm and quietness. With stars above and glitters below, we drift back towards the Icelandic capital feeling like pioneers who’ve just discovered a brand-new world.
Instagram: @introspections.nomades
Blog:66 degrees high
More Winter Flying in Iceland
The same pilot shared a few more flights and photos from flying in Iceland in winter. Here they are together in one place.
Iceland – Winter has Come
February 28th 2017
Winter in our higher latitudes can be harsh. Mentally harsh. After three months of depressive rain, submissing mist and a unwelcome mildness blocking the skies with tepid water, a three-day long depression reduces the island to a non-stop curfew.
Biblical plagues rough up. Armageddon descends onto Earth with pouring globs of charring ire and the skin-chaffing breath of Hell at over 80 knots in gusts.
Then, out of the dark, the Arctic winter rolls in, bringing under its white cape clear, endless skies freezing Iceland’s crunchy crust to a stand-still. Taking advantage of this climatic cease-fire, I accompany a friend of mine on a prehistorical ( some would say “retro” ^^) Cessna 150 along the West coast, sight-sighing Iceland’s riches under a white veil of fluff.
Departing Reykjavik, calm and smoky in the chill, we cruise along the coastline, grazing the sharp side of Mount Esja, the capital’s natural volcanic setting of tuff and brittle basalts. Turning right into Hvalfjörður, a 30km-long fjord east of the town of Akranes, we see turquoise above and sapphire below.
Hidden in its deepest troughs is Glymur, Iceland’s second highest waterfall with a dizzying height of 198m. Behind Hvalfell mountain, the Hvalvatn lake streams into a deep canyon, birthing the waterfall from the dewing of snow.
Heading North-West, we then cross the high grounds of Botnheidi, taking the plunge towards the next fjord over Skorradalsvatn, a narrow 15km-long lake surrounded by high mountains and cradled by foresty shores.
Out of Borgarfjörður, we cruise over snow-covered marshes towards Snæfellsnes, spotting below the 60m-high Eldborg crater.
Brushing tips with Prifjoll and Satuhnukur, we set to explore the line of fjords crowing the North end of the peninsula. Grundarfjördur hides Kirkjufell, an iconic cone-shaped mountain jotting from the sea, a natural twin to Jörmungandr’s fangs.
Over Rif airport and around Snæfellsjökull, a 700,000-year-old glacier-topped stratovolcano, famous for being Jules Verne’s entry point to the subterranean world of “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, we then catch the breeze home.
As the sun falls from its high seat, our bird peacefully glides its way back to Reykjavik airport. We leave our Winter wonderland to the auspices of stars and the dancing caress of polar lights, chasing away the cold’s biting numbness with dazzling tales of flight.
Thanks Guðlaugur Grétar Þorsteinsson for the flight!
Blog: Introspections Nomades – 66 degrees high
Instagram: @introspections.nomades
Wintery Vestmann – Approaches in Argentic
February 2018
It’s time for the storms. I get outside my building well bundled in layers upon layers of thick Icelandic wool (In French, we would use the word “se saucissonner”: literally “to wrap oneself in tightly like a sausage in its drying net”… What a sweet reference from home!). My little Golf is buried chilled under a meter of snow, her dreams of roaming the countryside during the whitest hours of the year grounded to a halt.
There is a steady breeze from the South , just enough nip to prick the skin into pinky cheeks and gnaw at unprotected finger bones. Over the coast, in the distance, a couple of stray cumulonimbi are spraying their path East, a veil of silvery powder obscuring today’s route. Thanks to a much-awaited climatic stand-still, the friend I am back-seating today will be honing his instrument flying skills before his final skill test. For this purpose, he will be taking us to the dramatic Vestmann islands, a volcanic archipelago just off the South coast of Iceland.
Practising approaches under a sky of steal, black cushions weaving our path to and away from our navigation aids, we seem to evolve in a world in argentic, colours drained to unravel metallic gleams.
The sky has cleared in the West, and we catch a glimpse of mount Keilir while descending on approach into Keflavík. The sky is purple and cobalt, and as we touch down after yet another one-engine inoperative approach, it goes all to winter black.
Instagram: @introspections.nomades
Blog: 66 degrees high
Vestmannaeyjar Airport at Sundown
Whilst training for instrument rating, I made a trip to Vestmannaeyjar, a series of islands located off the South coast of Iceland. Vestmannaeyjar Airport is a two-runway asphalted airport located on Heimaey, the largest and only inhabited island in the archipelago. After carrying an NDB-approach and subsequent missed approach procedure for runway 03, I briefly gave the controls to my instructor to snap a shot of this amazing place.
Instagram: @introspections.nomades
Blog: 66 degrees high
Beautiful Reykjavik Airport at Sunset
Flash-back to one of my very first flights in Iceland. Flight training starts with learning the basic principles of aircraft handling. As playgrounds when based in Keflavik International Airport, we have the west and middle training areas over the dark lava fields of Reykjanesbaer, the east training area east of the Capital, and the opportunity to visit another busy airport in Reykjavik by following VFR route 6. Here is a picture of beautiful Reykjavik peninsula and airport at sundown during those first hours of training.
Instragram: @introspections.nomades
Blog: 66 degrees high
