st maartens is the dutch spelling for the island (it's one half dutch)-this looks real to me-we used to go there alot when i was younger and planes would come in to land right over the bathers heads-this plane looks pretty small and probly came in a bit low-but i think it's the real deal

I buy that..

At first i'd agree with all the points which Cynn named: the shadow is indeed not where it is supposed to be, where for godsake are the ppl looking - ? - and the perspective of certain objects/persons seems also odd to me.

and then again i think: WHY OH WHY would somebody chop an airplane in a picture of a place where dozens of real airplanes go down a day?

after all, i dunno...

Quite clearly, if it WAS fake, the photoshopper would have used a big spazzy motion-blur, put a big lens-flare sun in the sky so the shadows go all the wrong way ...and there'd be a squirrel on that beach for sure.

(Assuming the chopper came from this site, that is. You all suck!)

lol @dew! ahah fugue! glad to have started this great discussion Cynn, in a way it is an optical illusion because of the effect a tele lens produces.

i'll post this again...perhaps seeing this will sway the non believers

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/stmarten.html

Definitely a Chop!

COMPUTED.ApertureFNumber f/8.0
IFD0.Make Canon
IFD0.Model Canon EOS 20D
EXIF.ExposureTime 1/1000
EXIF.FNumber 80/10
EXIF.ExposureProgram 3
EXIF.ISOSpeedRatings 200
EXIF.DateTimeOriginal 2005:02:19 04:05:26
EXIF.ShutterSpeedValue 653118/65536
EXIF.MeteringMode 5
EXIF.Flash 16
EXIF.FocalLength 31/1

I agree with everything that was said above about the shadows , ppl staring somewhere else and not surprised at all. Plus,it was taken at 04:05 o'clock in the morning, for such early time the sky is very clear and sunny/bright.
Again I might be wrong cus I never been to that island and I won't know about sunrise and time there.

alright i'm tired of posting this video....no one seems to be looking at it anyway......ahhhhh....one more time

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/stmarten.html

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=96534
did anyone else notice it is a topless beach, how appropriate

After some investigation here is what I found out.

Based on these photos it gives us a different view altogether.

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=426892
or
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=426170
or
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=426915
or
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=426157
or
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=425739
So, the reason why I initially thought it was a chop was cus I thought Chris Kilroy was a cabin crew for some airline and most of the cabin crews take photos of cities, beaches, airports etc and then they add a plane into that picture to show which airplane they were flying with.
Looking at the above pictures/links I now believe that the picture nancers showed us is real.
Also if you look at http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=426892 you will see that it is the same plane but with a split second difference from what nancers showed us.

From bottom of page:

"It's not a 747... but this was the lowest arrival I have ever seen in St. Maarten! 636MF is no more than 10 feet above the beach at this point, and would just barely clear the fence on its way to a 'quick' landing on runway 09. This one got a few screams out of beachgoers and barflies at the Sunset Beach Bar!"

Zetspat - The picture Haxor was refering to was of a 747 by the same photographer. A co-worker told him that the landing gear wasn't down, but that was incorrect.

In regards to the whole argument that the shadows/angles/people's heads are all in the wrong place, I decided to do a little research. A Gulfstream GV (the plane in the picture) measures 96'5" in length. Using that as a guide, and assuming that the average male is around 5'10", that would place the center of the plane well past the guy in the white shirt with the red shorts. Using a basic perspective with that guy and the guy in the forground with the white shirt and dark blue shorts (they are in approx. the same body position and location on the shoreline), it would make the bottom of the jet's wheels somewhere around 15'7" above the beach (pretty damn low, but more than the "10 feet" that people who have visited the beach claim). At that height, with the sun to the left and behind the photographer, the shadow would fall exactly where it does in the picture. It's impossible to tell the correct angle of people's head because they could be looking at different parts of the plane or looking upwards with their eyes, but everyone's facing the right direction if the plane is located where I estimate it to be.
So... the source of the picture seems reliable, there's no evidence of photo editing (clone marks, smudging, etc), numerous pictures and videos of much larger jets at dangerously low altitiudes are readily available, pilots and people who have been to the beach think it's authentic, and to the best of my ability, the math adds up. I can't do anything more to support my belief that it's real.

Yeah... I need to get a life.