Arba Minch Airport is an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

serving

Arba Minch Arba Minch (formerly called Ganta Garo) is a city and separate woreda in the southern part of Ethiopia. "Arba Minch" means "40 Springs", originated from the presence of more than 40 springs. It is located in the Gamo Zone of the Southern Natio ...

, a city in the

Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (often abbreviated as SNNPR; am, የደቡብ ብሔር ብሔረሰቦችና ሕዝቦች ክልል, Yädäbub Bḥer Bḥeräsäbočna Hzboč Kllə) is a regional state in southwestern E ...

(SNNPR) in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. The name of the city and airport may also be

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

as Arba Mintch. The airport is located northeast of the

city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

, near

Lake Abaya Lake Abaya (Amharic: አባያ ሐይቅ) is a lake in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. It is located in the Main Ethiopian Rift, east of the Guge Mountains. The town of Arba Minch lies on its southwestern s ...

Facilities

The airport sits at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

designated 03/21 with an

asphalt concrete Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac, bitumen macadam, or rolled asphalt in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parkin ...

surface measuring .

Airlines and destinations

Military use

In October 2011 it was confirmed that the U.S.

Seventeenth Air Force The Seventeenth Expeditionary Air Force (17 EAF) was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force located at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The command served the United States Air Forces in Europe during (1953–1996) and AFAFRICA, United Sta ...

was operating General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

from the airport for

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

over

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

. Master Sergeant James Fisher, spokesman for the 17th Air Force, said that an unspecified number of Air Force personnel are working at the Ethiopian airfield “to provide operation and technical support for our security assistance programs.” He also said that the drone flights “will continue as long as the

government of Ethiopia The government of Ethiopia () is the federal government of Ethiopia. It is structured in a framework of a federal republic, federal parliamentary system, parliamentary republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, prime minister is the hea ...

welcomes our cooperation on these varied security programs.” The United States military has spent millions of

dollars Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, U ...

upgrading the airbase to handle the Reapers, and is being used to surveil al-Shabab, but will not conduct

airstrikes An airstrike, air strike or air raid is an offensive operation carried out by aircraft. Air strikes are delivered from aircraft such as blimps, balloons, fighters, heavy bombers, ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters and drones. The offici ...

from the base. However, according to OSGEOINT, mapped imagery of the MQ-9A ranges may also suggest mission support to other countries outside of Somalia. ''Air Force'' (magazine notes in its 2012/13 annual survey of units that the

409th Air Expeditionary Group The 409th Air Expeditionary Group is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE), which may activate or inactivate the group as needed at any time. The group was first activated in June 1943 du ...

operates ISR aircraft from unspecified locations in the

United States Air Forces Africa United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...

area of responsibility Area of responsibility (AOR) is a pre-defined geographic region assigned to Combatant commanders of the Unified Command Plan (UCP), that are used to define an area with specific geographic boundaries where they have the authority to plan and cond ...

. In early April 2012, the second drone crash in four months was reported at the Reaper detachment in Mahe,

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

. The enclave at the base closed down during January 2016.

References

External links

* {{authority control Airports in Ethiopia Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region