Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport
Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport
Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte
Airport (French: Aéroport d’Ajaccio-Napoléon-Bonaparte, IATA: AJA, ICAO: LFKJ),
formerly “Campo dell’Oro Airport”, is the main airport serving Ajaccio on the
French island of Corsica. It is located in Ajaccio, a commune of the
département of Southern Corsica, 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the harbour. The airport
is the main base of regional airline Air Corsica, which operates services to
Metropolitan France. It is named for Napoleon Bonaparte, who was born in
Ajaccio.
History
Campo dell’Oro, before aviation,
was an alluvial plain at the mouth of the Gravona. The meaning of “Field of
Gold” remains obscure; some 19th century authors refer to a “rich cropland”;
others, to a malaria-infested marshland. A grass flying field existed there
before World War II but apparently offered no transportation services, as the
first regular flights to Marseille began with the institution of a seaplane
service in 1935 from Ajaccio Harbor.
In 1940, a Vichy Air Corps unit
was kept inactive at Campo dell’Oro. The liberation of Corsica began with the
landing by sea in 1943 of I Corps at Ajaccio in Operation Vésuve. A few months
later Fighter Group GC2/7 of the Free French Air Force, a French unit of the
Royal Air Force, were operational on the grass field at Campo dell’Oro with
Spitfires. Heavy aircraft were unable to land and came to mishap in the soft
surface.
In 1944 the United States Army
Air Forces took over the airport and put down a hard surface of perforated
metallic mats from which a squadron of P-51’s flew. They defended B-24’s flying
from new airfields constructed on the east coast of Corsica. Campo dell’Oro was
a challenge for the larger aircraft because of its relatively short runways and
proximity to the mountains. Toward the end of the war, the runways were paved,
the foundation of the modern airport.
On December 1, 1981, Inex-Adria
Aviopromet Flight 1308 crashed while on approach to this airport, killing all
on board.
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