Best airport live cams with ATC audio
A runway camera on its own is pleasant. Add the tower frequency and it turns into something you can follow: you hear the landing clearance, look up, and there's the aircraft it was meant for.
Not every stream has it. Radio rules differ by country, and plenty of official cameras are silent. These are the airports on our list where you get both picture and sound, roughly in the order we'd send a newcomer to them.
LAX1. Los Angeles International Airport
🇺🇸 Los Angeles, United States
The obvious place to start. There are two streams, one for each pair of runways, both with tower audio, and the traffic never really stops. American controllers talk fast, but LAX is so repetitive that after twenty minutes you'll be predicting the next call. Evenings are best, when the big jets to Asia and Australia line up.
Watch the LAX live cam →
DFW2. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport
🇺🇸 Dallas, United States
DFW is so large it has separate towers for its east and west sides, and this stream moves between the two frequencies. Listen during one of American's connecting rushes and you'll hear a controller clear a departure roughly every minute without ever sounding hurried.
Watch the DFW live cam →
MIA3. Miami International Airport
🇺🇸 Miami, United States
Good for variety on the radio. Callsigns you won't hear at most US airports turn up all day: Avianca, LATAM, Copa and a long list of cargo operators. The PTZtv stream watches runway 9/27 with the tower frequency running underneath.
Watch the MIA live cam →
SEA4. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
🇺🇸 Seattle, United States
Three parallel runways, Alaska Airlines callsigns back to back, and Mount Rainier in the frame when the weather allows. It's a calmer listen than Los Angeles and easier to keep up with if you're new.
Watch the SEA live cam →
ZRH5. Zurich Airport
🇨🇭 Zurich, Switzerland
The one to pick if you want European phraseology. Swiss controllers are crisp and by the book, and because Zurich's runways cross each other you'll hear a lot of careful timing between a landing on one and a departure on another.
Watch the ZRH live cam →
STL6. St. Louis Lambert International Airport
🇺🇸 St. Louis, United States
Quieter than the big hubs, which is the appeal. There's room between calls to work out what was said, and every so often a military callsign appears when a fighter from the Boeing plant heads out on a test flight.
Watch the STL live cam →
TPE7. Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport
🇹🇼 Taipei, Taiwan
Tower audio over a camera on the north runway. The radio is in English, as it is for airline flights almost everywhere, and you'll get used to hearing Dynasty for China Airlines and Eva for EVA Air.
Watch the TPE live cam →
HND8. Tokyo Haneda Airport
🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan
A different sort of stream: live Haneda ATC over a 3D radar picture instead of a camera. Keep it open in one tab and one of the Haneda terminal cams in another, and you have sound for an airport whose official cameras are silent.
Watch the HND live cam →
If the radio sounds like noise at first, that's normal. Our guide to following ATC covers the handful of phrases that make up most of what you'll hear.