Chabelley Airport , also known as the Chabelley Airfield, is a military airstrip in

Chabelley Chabelley ( so, Shabeelle), ( ar, شبيلي) is a village in the southern Arta region of Djibouti. It lies less than 13 km from the capital Djibouti City. Demographics As of 2019, Chabelley has a population of around 1,011 inhabitants. Most resi ...

, located some 6 miles to the southwest of

Djibouti City Djibouti (also called Djibouti City and in many early English texts and on many early maps, Jibuti; so, Magaalada Jabuuti, french: link=no, Ville de Djibouti, ar, مدينة جيبوتي, aa, Gabuutî Magaala) is the eponymous capital of Dji ...

, the capital of

Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...

Facilities

The airport has a single

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

runway 10/28 that is 8,530 x 95 feet (2,600 x 29 m) long. It features

displaced threshold A displaced threshold or DTHR is a runway threshold located at a point other than the physical beginning or end of the runway. The portion of the runway behind a displaced threshold may be used for takeoff in either direction and landings from the ...

s and runway turnarounds at either end in place of a parallel taxiway. Two small concrete

aprons An apron is a garment that is worn over other clothing to cover the front of the body. The word comes from old French ''napron'' meaning a small piece of cloth, however over time "a napron" became "an apron", through a linguistics process cal ...

have been constructed to provide parking and maintenance facilities, some of the several additions made by the US military since 2013. Other additions include a perimeter fence, guard towers, and vehicle access gates.

Military

Although it is operated and used by the French military, it began serving as a temporary base for

U.S. military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

unmanned aircraft 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 ...

in September 2013. The move came after the Djiboutian government expressed concern over a number of recent drone mishaps and accidents at the American

Camp Lemonnier Camp Lemonnier is a United States Naval Expeditionary Base, situated next to Djibouti–Ambouli International Airport in Djibouti City, and home to the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) of the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRI ...

Naval Expeditionary Base, which serves as a hub for counterterrorism operations in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

and

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 ...

. The Djiboutian authorities consequently asked U.S. officials to relocate the drones to the rarely used Chabelley Airfield. Previously, Chabelley airstrip had been exclusively reserved in case of need for the French military. The U.S. Air Force's 870th Air Expeditionary Squadron operates

Predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

and

Reaper A reaper is a agricultural machinery, farm implement or person that wikt:reap#Verb, reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were ...

drones from the airfield.

References

External links

Satellite view of Chabelley Airport
Airports in Djibouti {{Djibouti-airport-stub