N'Dolo Airport

Aéroport de N'Dolo
Characteristics
ICAO code	FZAB
IATA code	NLO
Coordinates	4 ° 19 '36 " S , 15 ° 19' 38" E Coordinates: 4 ° 19 '36 " S , 15 ° 19' 38" E
Height above MSL	279 m (915 ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	0.6 km south of Barumbu
Street	Avenue de l'aérodrome
train	N'Dolo
Basic data
opening	1919/1920
operator	Régie des voies aériennes (RVA)
Start-and runway
08/26	1686 m × 30 m asphalt

The Aéroport de N'Dolo is a small airfield in the Barumbu district of the capital Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .

It is next to the airport Ndjili the smaller and older of the two airports in the region Kinshasa. The airfield is mainly used for domestic cargo flights. Since the Kinshasa plane disaster in 1996, in which an overloaded cargo plane shot over the runway into a suburb market, there has been a take-off weight limit of 15 tons. Originally built on the periphery of what was then Léopoldville , the airfield is now completely surrounded by settlements in the Kinshasa agglomeration.

The cargo airline Air Kasaï is based at the Aéroport de N'Dolo. On the site of the airfield there is a small industrial area, warehouses and former military hangars.

location

The airfield is located in the eastern residential area of Kinshasa close to the Fleuve Congo , the second longest river in Africa.

history

The establishment and expansion of the Aéroport de N'Dolo goes back to the founding history of the Aviation militaire de la Force publique (Avimil), which operated its military base there from 1940 to 1960. The Farman F.500 Monitor was one of the two-seat trainers Avimil used for pilot training at the time.

At the end of 1960, Avimil moved its base to Lubumbashi . After that, the Aéroport de N'Dolo continued to operate as a regional airport for passenger traffic until Ndjili Airport opened.

Incidents

On January 8, 1996, after a failed take-off from N'Dolo airport , an overloaded Antonov An-32 B cargo plane of the Russian Moscow Airways ( aircraft registration number RA-26222 ) sped into a market square, where at least 297 people died (some sources report more than 350 dead ). Four of the six crew members survived (some sources state that all crew members survived). The Moscow Airways plane was flown by two drunk Russian pilots. It was officially leased from Scibe Airlift , as African Air (a bogus company owned by Scibe) did not have a license to operate such an aircraft. Scibe Airlift and Air Africa were ordered to pay US $ 1.4 million to the victims and their survivors (see Kinshasa air disaster ) .

Web links

Entry with pictures and plans on Wikinshasa - Atlas de l'architecture et du paysage urbains
Leopoldville 1925 - First Flight from Belgium with old photos
The airport data (English)

Individual evidence

^ Émile Janssens: Histoire de La Force Publique. Ghesquière, 1979, p. 239-240
↑ Aircraft accident data and report of the aircraft accident of AN-32 RA-26222 from January 8, 1996 in the Accident Database of Plane Crash Info
^ Accident report AN-32 RA-26222 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on May 14, 2017.
↑ http://www.airliners.net/aviation-articles/read.main?id=90 ( Memento from January 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

[1] Émile Janssens: Histoire de La Force Publique. Ghesquière, 1979, p. 239-240

[2] Aircraft accident data and report of the aircraft accident of AN-32 RA-26222 from January 8, 1996 in the Accident Database of Plane Crash Info

[3] Accident report AN-32 RA-26222 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on May 14, 2017.

[4] ttp://www.airliners.net/aviation-articles/read.main?id=90 ( Memento from January 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive )