Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport
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| Constanţa "Mihail Kogălniceanu" International Airport Aeroportul Internaţional Constanţa Mihail Kogălniceanu |
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|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: CND - ICAO: LRCK | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public & Military | ||
| Operator | N/A | ||
| Serves | Constanţa | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 353 ft (108 m) | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 18/36 | 11,483 | 3,500 | Concrete |
Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport (IATA: CND, ICAO: LRCK) is situated in south-east Romania, in the commune of Mihail Kogălniceanu, at 26 km NW of Constanţa. It is the main airport of Dobrogea region and it provides access to the Constanţa County, the Constanţa city port and Black Sea Romanian resorts. The airport's maximum traffic capacity was reached in 1979, when Romanian Riviera reached the highest number of foreign tourists; at that time CND served 778,766 passengers. It has been a US Military Forces base since 1999, which has recently been allegedly exposed as the site of clandestine CIA interrogations. [1]
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[edit] Airlines & destinations
The airport is capable of handling wide-body aircraft, its 3,500m concrete runway also making it suitable for heavy cargo flights.
[edit] Scheduled Airlines
[edit] Charter Airlines
- Adria Airways (Ljubljana)
- Air Berlin (seasonal)
- Hamburg International (seasonal)
- Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest) (seasonal)
- TAROM (Cluj-Napoca, Kristiansund, Harstad, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Stavanger)
[edit] Military uses
The airport was home of the former Romanian Air Force 57th Air Base, which was the only unit operating the Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter aircraft. The base was disbanded in April 2004 and all the 18 MiG-29s remain in open storage at the airport. It has been used by the United States Military since 1999. In 2003, it became one of four Romanian military facilities that have been used by U.S. military forces as a staging area for the invasion of and ongoing counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq, operated by the 458th Air Expeditionary Group, and it is intended to become one of the main operating bases of U.S. Army Europe's Joint Task Force East, a rotating task force initially to be provided by the U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which will eventually grow to a brigade sized force.
[edit] Involvement in "extraordinary renditions"
It is also alleged to be one of the black sites involved in the CIA's network of "extraordinary renditions".
According to Eurocontrol data, it has been the site of four landings and two stopovers by aircraft identified as probably belonging to the CIA's fleet of rendition planes, including at least one widely used executive jet N379P (later registered, and more commonly cited, as N44982).[2] European (but not U.S.) media have widely distributed reports of a fax[3][4]intercepted by Swiss intelligence, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, that "was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria."[5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Swiss Investigate Leak to Paper on C.I.A. Prisons in Eastern Europe - New York Times
- ^ Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners (November 16, 2006). Working Document No. 8.
- ^ US-Folter-Camps: Der Beweis! - Aktuell - SonntagsBlick - Blick Online
- ^ unknown (January 9, 2006). Egyptian Fax Throws Light on "Black Sites". Der Spiegel.
- ^ Scotland's Sunday Herald, March 2, 2003
[edit] References
- Charlie Coon, Construction To Begin This Winter On Romania Bases, Stars and Stripes, September 30, 2006, http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=39468&archive=true
- JTF East
- Sourcewatch link
[edit] External links
- Airport's website
- Airport information for LRCK at World Aero Data
- Google map showing the airport
- - Mihail Kogălniceanu International Air Base at Sourcewatch.org
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