Samedan Airfield

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Engadin Airport
Logo Engadin Airport.svg
AirportSamedan.JPG
Characteristics
ICAO code LSZS
IATA code SMV
Coordinates

46 ° 32 '6 "  N , 9 ° 53' 6"  E Coordinates: 46 ° 32 '6 "  N , 9 ° 53' 6"  E
Height above MSL 1707.5 m (5602  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 1 km east of Samedan,
5 km northeast of St. Moritz
Street Plazza Aviatica 2
Basic data
opening January 27, 1938, civil since 2004
operator Engadin Airport AG
Passengers 34,000
Flight
movements 		14,284 (2014)
Start-and runway
03/21 1840 m × 40 m asphalt

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The Samedan airfield (marketing name: Engadin Airport ) is 1707  m above sea level. M. one of the highest airfields in Europe. It is located in the Engadine village of Samedan , around five kilometers from the Swiss tourist resort of St. Moritz .

history

Airfield tower, operations building and hangar; the civil tower was on the left in the operations building on the first floor as long as the military occupied its own tall tower.
Locations of the 11 Swiss regional airports

The glamorous health resort of St. Moritz has been a magnet for airplanes since the first pioneering years , where airplanes landed on the frozen lake in the pioneering years of commercial aviation. In 1926 the army secured a landing site in the area of ​​today's airfield, and the grass runway was not prepared until 1937. Gliders had been towed into the air on the plain before. A cooperative was founded, which bought the area and built a hangar. The field was opened on January 27, 1938, and shortly afterwards a Douglas DC-2 landed for the first time , coming directly from London.

In 1950 the Swiss Confederation took over the airfield and ensured that it would be used for civilian purposes. The flight operations of the Flugwaffe were limited to training and target towing. C-3603s painted with red stripes were used for the target tow , at the beginning of the 1970s the aircraft were converted to C-3605s and were painted yellow and black. Such machines flew for the anti-aircraft firing ranges in Brigels and S-chanf until 1987 . Orange-black jets of the type DH-100 Vampire of the Swiss Air Force flew as further air targets until 1990 .

In 1987 the Flugtag 50 years Airfield Oberengadin Samedan took place, to which the Patrouille Suisse flew a demonstration and an Airbus A310 from Swissair accidentally touched down on the runway during its demonstration. In 1987, 15,475 aircraft movements took place, in those years there were also scheduled flights from London Luton or direct flights by business planes from New York . Passenger flights were carried out with Aero-Leasing , to avoid noise there was no towing of gliders, only winch starts, and basic pilot training was forbidden at the time.

From January 1, 2004, the airfield was owned by the Canton of Graubünden. To operate the airfield, the canton signed a contract with Engadin Airport AG in summer 2004 , which took over operations in December.

In order to remedy a lack of aircraft parking spaces , a considerable expansion of the apron has been planned since 2007 , and construction of the first phase is scheduled to begin in 2021.

Flight operations

Samedan airfield, viewing direction with runway 03 to NNE.

The airport no longer has regular scheduled operations, but it is served by various private jet providers, especially in winter. There is a lot of glider traffic. The airfield is also popular with skydivers and similar sports, which start from here in the Bernina Group . The flight school of the Upper Engadin motor flight group is also located on the site .

The airfield is open all year round and has customs clearance and a hangar . The runway is long enough that comparatively large aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and Super Constellation have landed there. However, the slope is not always free of snow. Due to its location in the mountains, a snow groomer (called a snow groomer here ) is part of the snow removal vehicle fleet. Every year around 14,000–22,000 flight movements take place at the airfield.

The airfield does not have an instrument landing system , so the landing can only be done by sight. In connection with the location in a narrow mountain valley, the extraordinary height above sea level for Europe and difficult wind conditions, the landing is considered particularly demanding.

As a result of the accident on December 19, 2010, the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation issued new, stricter guidelines for pilots before and when approaching the airfield. Immediately after the accident, an electronic briefing became compulsory for pilots , which asks for important basic knowledge about the special features of the airfield before departure for Samedan airfield. At the beginning of 2011, the obligation was introduced that all pilots who have not yet flown the airfield must complete their first approach as a briefing flight accompanied by a flight instructor before they are allowed to approach in a solo flight. The limits for visual flight have been increased so that an approach can only take place with a minimum visibility of 5 kilometers and a cloud height of at least 700 meters above ground.

Incidents

  • On March 6, 1970 the only Handley Page HP-137 Jetstream 1 ( aircraft registration D-INAH ) of the airline Bavaria had an accident while approaching Samedan airfield. The aircraft that took off in Munich-Riem suffered turbine damage on approach, causing the pilots to lose control. As a result, the machine crashed about three kilometers from the runway threshold. The two crew members and all nine passengers were killed in the accident. Bavaria founder Max Schwabe and his family were among the victims .
  • On February 14, 2002, a Beechcraft King Air 300 from the Austrian company Kronospan (D-ICBC) flew into a mountain near the Sarsura glacier . The machine was approaching Samedan airfield. However, the pilots lost their spatial orientation in critical visibility conditions; the plane collided with the terrain. Both pilots, the only occupants, were killed.
  • On July 25, 2008, there was an incident involving a glider (HB-1937) . The LS-4a aircraft crashed in a forest shortly after takeoff. The seriously injured pilot was flown to Chur hospital , but succumbed to his injuries a day later.
  • On February 12, 2009, a serious accident occurred when a Falcon 10/100 (VP-BAF) hit a snow wall running parallel to the left of the runway at least 5 meters outside the runway at least 5 meters outside the runway during an incorrectly aligned landing while drifting away from the runway , 1 meter height and shortly thereafter, due to the subsequent turn, hit the right side of the fuselage into the four meter high snow wall standing across the runway next to the taxiway. Both pilots died in the accident, the passenger survived. The Federal Office for Civil Aviation then ordered the airfield to be closed until the snow walls had been removed and a new snow removal concept had been drawn up. According to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau , the main causes of the accident were errors by the pilots that had led to a landing that had started with the touchdown of the right wing on the left half of the runway. In September of the same year, the guideline for snow removal was definitely adapted to the regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO without the previously formulated exception , according to which snow may only be 0.6 meters high 5 meters outside the runway. The airport company operates its own piste machine for this purpose , as even the natural depth of snow in Samedan naturally reaches higher values.
  • On December 19, 2010, a Beechcraft 390 Premier IA of the German Windrose Air (D-IAYL) crashed into a nearby transformer station near Bever after an aborted approach to the airfield . In the right turn to the final approach during the new approach, the roll angle reached 62 °, which led to a stall at the low altitude of around 180 meters. Both pilots (the only occupants) were killed.
  • On August 4, 2017, a Piper PA- 28-181 Archer II (HB-PER) of the motor flight group Upper Engadin, which was launched in Samedan, crashed around 300 meters north of the Diavolezza as part of the aviation youth camp organized by the Aero Club of Switzerland . Two of the three young passengers and the pilot were killed in the accident, one passenger was recovered seriously injured. An unsuitable and high-risk flight tactic was found to be the cause of the accident, whereby leaving control of the controls to a person who was not familiar with the flight contributed directly to the accident. The pilot had a private pilot license (PPL (A)), but was not qualified as a flight instructor . Meanwhile, the organizers made a systemic contribution to the accident through their lack of safety awareness.

Rega highland base

In Engadin flying Rega since 1957 inserts since 1977 with its own infrastructure at the airport Samedan. Rega 9 is a highland base with a wide range of missions, most of which are so-called primary missions in which an emergency doctor and paramedic are flown to an accident site for first aid. The Swiss-German feature film Heldin der Lüfte was shot in Samedan, among others, with Rega support.

Trivia

  • From December 8, 2003, cold tests with the French Rafale fighter aircraft took place in Samedan.
  • The largest aircraft that could be found in Samedan were those of the Boeing 737 type such as those of the shipping company Niarchos and the Airbus A320, of which one A320 neo aircraft landed in 2018.

literature

  • Peter Kasper, Giuseppe Lazzarini: Upper Engadin Airfield . Samedan 1987.
  • Matteo De Pedrini: The history of the Samedan airfield in Bündner Monatsblatt 3/2015, pp. 272–291

Web links

Commons : Samedan Airfield  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Figures on Swiss aviation. Retrieved December 24, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Flugtag, 50 years of the Oberengadin Samedan airfield , Air Force dossier in the Federal Archives
  3. ↑ Samedan Airfield (1988) | SRF “Karussell” from February 16, 1988
  4. ↑ Development of the Samedan / Upper Engadin regional airport , on engiadinaota.ch, on the information event on August 27, 2018
  5. ↑ a b “Samedan is the most demanding airport in the world”. In: Basler Zeitung online. December 20, 2010, accessed December 20, 2010 .
  6. ↑ arrival - magazine of Samedan airfield 2011
  7. ↑ Samedan Airport. In: Municipality of Samedan. Retrieved December 20, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Support pilots on approach to Samedan. Press release. In: admin.ch. Federal Office for Civil Aviation, December 22, 2010, accessed on June 11, 2017 .
  9. ^ Accident report HP-137 Jetstream D-INAH , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 27, 2019.
  10. ↑ The bankrupt vulture flies happily with you . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1972 ( online - 26 June 1972 ).
  11. ↑ Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau: Final Report No. 1874 of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. Retrieved August 29, 2016 .
  12. ^ Accident report King Air 300 D-ICBC , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 27, 2019.
  13. ^ Accident report LS-4a HB-1937 , Aviation Safety Network WikiBase (English), accessed on November 27, 2019.
  14. ↑ Samedan: Pilot died after crash with glider. In: Link Grischun. Retrieved December 15, 2008 .
  15. ↑ Final report No. 2074 on the accident involving the Marcel Dassault / Bréguet Aviation Falcon 10/100 aircraft, VP-BAF operated by Laret Aviation Ltd. dated February 12, 2009 Samedan Airport (LSZS), municipality of Samedan / GR. (PDF; 3.8 MB) (No longer available online.) Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, June 10, 2010, archived from the original on December 24, 2012 ; Retrieved October 7, 2010 .
  16. ↑ Alexander Kahane survived the plane crash. In: Vienna Online. February 13, 2009, accessed October 7, 2010 .
  17. ↑ Fatal snow accident of the Falcon 10 in Samedan cleared up , Skynews September 2010, page 9
  18. ^ Accident report Beechcraft Premier I D-IAYL , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 27, 2019.
  19. ↑ Swiss Security Investigation Board (SUST): Final Report No. 2339 , accessed on January 18, 2019
  20. ↑ Canton police of Graubünden - Pontresina: Crash of a small plane causes three deaths , accessed on August 4, 2017
  21. ^ Accident report PA-28-181 HB-PER , Aviation Safety Network WikiBase (English), accessed on November 27, 2019.
  22. ↑ Rega 9: “Highland Base” in the Engadine , accessed on December 15, 2008
  23. ↑ Melanie Winiger saves lives in Graubünden. In: Tages-Anzeiger . December 3, 2008, accessed December 4, 2008 .
  24. ↑ Big "bird" on a small airfield , Southeastern Switzerland, July 6, 2018