Marka International Airport
| Marka International Airport & King Abdullah I Air Base |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| Characteristics | |||
| ICAO code | OJAM | ||
| IATA code | ADJ | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Height above MSL | 779 m (2556 ft ) | ||
| Transport links | |||
| Distance from the city center | 3 km northeast of Amman | ||
| Basic data | |||
| opening | 1922 | ||
| operator | Civil Aviation Authority | ||
| Start-and runway | |||
| 06/24 | 3275 m × 45 m asphalt | ||
The Marka International Airport ( Arabic مطار ماركا الدولي, DMG Maṭār Mārkā ad-Dawlī ; IATA : ADJ, ICAO : OJAM) is an airport east of Amman in Jordan . In military terms it is also known as King Abdullah I Air Base .
history
The airfield was used by the Royal Air Force as RAF Amman from 1922 to 1948 . From 1948 it was opened to civil air traffic and is now called Marka Airport. In the same year, Marka Airport became the home base of the Arab Airways Association , which two years earlier had been the first Jordanian airline to be founded. From 1950, Air Jordan was also based there. In the 1950s, the airport was served by international scheduled flights from, among others, the European companies BOAC and KLM . The Royal Air Force gave up its base there in early summer 1957. After the coup d'état in Iraq in July 1958, she returned to Amman with some Hunter Jets.
In 1948, the airfield suffered severe damage from Israeli air strikes during the Arab-Israeli war , which was again the case in 1967 in the Six Day War . In 1951, King Abdullah I inaugurated the military airfield for the newly created Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) with its first two squadrons. From 1952 new runways and buildings were built on it. Since then, the headquarters of the RJAF has been located there. At the beginning of the 1970s, the runways were expanded again in order to be able to handle larger aircraft.
Until the opening of Queen Alia International Airport in 1983, Marka International Airport was Amman's international airport. Since then it has been used as a regional airport and continues to be used by the Jordanian Air Force. Police helicopters are stationed at the airport and there is a gliding club, as well as the Prince Feisal Technical College and two flight schools. The airport is in the time zone UTC + 2 (DST + 3). It is open around the clock and has a terminal.
Marka Airport is / was the home base of:
Incidents
- On September 9, 1956, the crew of a Curtiss C-46 A of Jordan International Airlines ( aircraft registration JY-ABV ) could not gain height after taking off from Amman-Marka. The pilots then initiated a traffic pattern . On its final approach , the aircraft hit a hill with the landing gear still retracted, slipped over the top and came to rest on the other side of the slope. The plane then caught fire. There were four crew members and 53 passengers on board, one of whom was killed.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Royal Jordanian Air Force. Retrieved April 11, 2018 .
- ↑ The airfield on the RJAF official website
- ^ Accident report C-46 JY-ABV , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on June 9, 2020.