Point Salines International Airport

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Point Salines International Airport
IATA: GND - ICAO: TGPY
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		Grenada Airports Authority
Serves		St. George's, Grenada
Elevation AMSL		41 ft (12 m)
Coordinates		12°00′15″N, 61°47′10″W
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
10/28	9,003	2,744	Asphalt

Point Salines International Airport (IATA: GND, ICAO: TGPY) is located in the parish of St. George's. The town of St. George's is about 5 miles north of the airport and is the capital of the island nation of Grenada. The airport is located on Point Salines, the most southwestern point of the island. The unfinished airport was chosen as the jump off point for the invasion of the Island by the United States to restore order there after hard-line pro-Communist elements within Grenada’s government and military seized power in October 1983. More than 500 Rangers from 1st and 2nd Battalions of the United States Army 75th Ranger Regiment conducted a risky daylight low altitude parachute assault onto the airport. Despite resistance from paramilitary and Cuban forces, the Rangers secured all of their objectives on the airfield quickly. The seizure of the airfield allowed United States Air Force C-141 transport planes to land and unload paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division.

The building of the airport — designed to replace an obsolete one on the north side of the island — was cited by U.S. President Ronald Reagan as evidence that the Grenadian government intended to allow it to be used as a waypoint for Soviet military aircraft en route to Cuba. He buttressed this claim with the evidence that it was being built, in part, by Cuban workers. The contention that the airport had any military function was vehemently denied by Grenada’s Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Bishop and his government contended that the Point Salines airport was intended to make the island more accessible to European and North American tourists. The long range jets that carried such tourists could not land on the short and geographically difficult runway that the existing airport, Pearls. As a result, tourists bound for Grenada had to put up with the delays, expenses and perceived risks of changing to smaller planes flown by regional carriers. The Grenadian government said they hoped their tourist trade would dramatically increase if direct flights from Europe and North America were possible.

The airport itself was designed by a Canadian firm and the construction contracts were awarded to mostly European contractors.

The event that precipitated the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada was not the construction of the airport, but, rather, a violent coup in which Prime Minister Bishop was killed. The American justification for the invasion was the perceived threat to American medical students at St. George's University, whose campus is a short distance from the Point Salines airport.