Cassidy airport

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Cassidy International Airport
Fiji Airways Boeing 737-700 at Cassidy Airport
Characteristics
ICAO code PLCH
IATA code CXI
Coordinates

1 ° 59 '10 "  N , 157 ° 20' 59"  W Coordinates: 1 ° 59 '10 "  N , 157 ° 20' 59"  W.
Height above MSL 2 m (7  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 15.5 km east of Tabwakea
Basic data
opening 1942 (military)
operator Republic of Kiribati
Terminals 1
Start-and runway
08/26 2103 m × 30 m asphalt

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The Cassidy International Airport ( IATA : CXI, ICAO : PLCH) is an airport on the Line Islands belonging to Kiribati Island Kiritimati . It is located around 3,280 kilometers east of the Kiribati capital South Tarawa and is one of the two airports in the island state through which international scheduled connections are offered.

history

British pioneers extended the runway to conduct nuclear weapons tests in 1956

In the fall of 1941, because of the increasing tensions with the Japanese Empire , the USA decided to set up an alternative transfer route in order to be able to relocate military aircraft to the Philippines and Australia in the event of war . For this purpose, the construction of an airfield on the then British Christmas Island (Christmas Island, today Kiritimati ) began in November 1941 , which was on the planned "South Pacific Air Ferry Route" . The military airfield known as Christmas Island Airfield was completed in January 1942. The United States Army Air Forces stationed in February 1942 fighter aircraft of the type Bell P-39 on site to protect the airfield before Japanese air attacks. In the same year the pilot Wilbur L. Casady stationed on the airfield had an accident with his fighter plane, whereupon the military airfield was nicknamed Casady Field . The name was later changed to today's “Cassidy”.

In order to carry out nuclear weapons tests on Christmas Island and on the Malden atoll around 750 km south , Great Britain had the military airfield expanded in 1956 and the runway extended so that it could serve as the starting point for the series of tests. The first hydrogen bomb was dropped on May 15, 1957 over Malden by a Vickers Valiant that had started from Christmas Island airfield. To exchange military personnel, the Royal Air Force carried out weekly flights between Lyneham (Great Britain) and Christmas Island with jet aircraft of the type De Havilland DH.106 Comet from October 1, 1957 . The British nuclear weapons tests in the region ended on September 23, 1958. From April to July 1962, the airfield was used by the USA as a base for further nuclear weapons tests during Operation Dominic .

With the independence of the Republic of Kiribati , Cassidy Airport became their property in 1979. The Kiribati airline Air Tungaru operated a Boeing 727-100 from summer 1981 to spring 1984 on scheduled flights from Bonriki to Honolulu ( Hawaii ), which were operated via Kiritimati. For a short time it also offered a connection to Tahiti ( French Polynesia ) from there. On behalf of the Kiribati government, the US American Aloha Airlines started using Boeing 737-200 planes on weekly scheduled flights between Honolulu and Kiritimati from February 1986 . It had received the first ETOPS approval for this type of aircraft from the Federal Aviation Administration . The Republic of Kiribati subsidized the operation of Aloha Airlines on this route with $ 500,000 per year. For reasons of cost, it was decided in spring 1991 not to extend the contract with the US company and instead to entrust the state Air Tungaru with these flights again. The state-owned company rented a Boeing 737-200 for this purpose in March 1991, with which it opened its scheduled connection from Bonriki via Kiritimati to Honolulu, which it operated until 1984, for a second time in May 1991. Due to problems with handling in Hawaii, Air Tungaru stopped international operations in July 1991. Following got Aloha Airlines again the contract for the subsidized flights between Kiritimati and Honolulu, which she carried out with some interruptions until April 26 of 2004. In the mid-1990s, Air Marshall Islands also briefly operated the connection between Honolulu and Kiritimati on behalf of the Kiribati government, using a Douglas DC-8-62CF .

Air Pacific (renamed Fiji Airways in 2013) flew to Kirimati from October 2005 as a stopover on their route from Nadi ( Fiji ) to Honolulu from both directions. The connection had to be temporarily suspended on September 2, 2008 due to the poor condition of the runway. After the railway had received a new asphalt surface , Air Pacific resumedscheduled flights on May 25, 2010 with a Boeing 737-700 . Since 2016, Air Kiribati hasstationeda Harbin Y-12 at the airport, with which the neighboring islands of Tabuaeran and Teraina are served on schedule.

Flight connections

As of January 2018, the following connections are offered:

Airline aims
Air Kiribati Tabuaeran , Teraina (neighboring Kiribati islands)
Fiji Airways Honolulu , Nadi (once a week)

Web links

Commons : Cassidy International Airport  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ William C. Fort, III, PhD, Development of Transpacific Transport Routes by the US Army during World War II ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (in English), accessed January 30, 2018 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / stamps.org
  2. ↑ Glen M. Williford: Racing the Sunrise: The reinforcement of America's Pacific outposts, 1941-1942 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2010, ISBN 1-59114-956-8 .
  3. ↑ 7th Fighter Command Association, The 12th Fighter Squadron, History , accessed January 30, 2018
  4. ^ Air Force Magazine, January 1944 , accessed January 31, 2018
  5. ^ Lorna Arnold: Britain and the H-Bomb . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2001, ISBN 0-333-94742-8 .
  6. ↑ Flight International, April 4, 1958 , accessed February 3, 2018
  7. ↑ CTBTO, November 8, 1957 - Grapple X , accessed January 30, 2018
  8. ↑ BBC, Christmas Island: In search of Britain's nuclear legacy, July 8, 2013 , accessed January 30, 2018
  9. ^ Air Tungaru, June 1981 flight plan , accessed January 30, 2018
  10. ↑ Flightglobal, Aloha lines up ETOPS 737s for South Pacific expansion, August 19, 1999 , accessed February 3, 2018
  11. ↑ Howard Van Trease: Atoll Politics: The Republic of Kiribati . Macmillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies, Christchurch / Suva 1993, ISBN 982-02-0081-4 .
  12. ↑ Pacific Island Report, Air Kiribati connects Honolulu and Christmas Island, August 13, 1997 , accessed January 28, 2018
  13. ↑ Christmas Island Site Survey, 2007
  14. ↑ Airlinercafe, Little Amy - Air Marshall Islands' DC-8 , accessed February 4, 2018
  15. ↑ Air Pacific News, Air Pacific suspends flights To Kirimati (Christmas) Island, August 29, 2008 ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (in English), accessed April 14, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.airpacific.com
  16. ↑ Air Pacific News, Flights to Kiritimati (Christmas) Island, March 30, 2010 ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (in English), accessed April 14, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.airpacific.com
  17. ^ Air Kiribati, Our History , accessed February 10, 2018
  18. ↑ Air Kiribati, Line Islands network map , accessed on January 27, 2018