Gongxingdun Airport also called ''Lanzhou Donggang Airport'' () was an airport in
Gongxingdun township,
Chengguan District,
Lanzhou
Lanzhou (, ; ) is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. H ...
,
Gansu
Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province.
The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...
, China. It was the primary airport of Lanzhou from the 1930s to 1970.
History
A site was selected, about from the center of Lanzhou, by the
Eurasia Aviation Corporation, and the airport opened in the early 1930s. The airport was built with a gravel runway of long and wide.
During the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
, it was under control of the
7th Fighter Aviation Division.
The airport was also an important landing site for Soviet aircraft sending aid to China during the war, and Chinese fighter ace and war hero
Gao Zhihang
Gao Zhihang (; 14 May 1907 – 21 November 1937) was a flying ace of the Republic of China (1912-49), Republic of China in the Second Sino-Japanese War. On August 14, 1937, the 4th Air Force Group commanded by Gao shot down six Japanese planes o ...
led his pilots of the
4th Pursuit Group
The 4th Pursuit Group was a United States Army Air Service unit that fought on the Western Front during World War I as part of the Air Service, Second United States Army. It was demobilized in France on 15 April 1919. There is no modern United ...
in November 1937 to receive new
Polikarpov I-16
The Polikarpov I-16 (russian: Поликарпов И-16) is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to attain ope ...
fighter here, and leading the group back to the eastern front to resume combat operations against the imperial Japanese approach to
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
.
On November 5, 1937, the airport was bombed by the Japanese, and on 4 December of the same year again, during which 2 died and 4 where wounded. In the following months, the airport was under attack several times more, and air battles took place over Lanzhou through 1938 and 1939 as the Japanese were persistent to capture Lanzhou. However suffering large losses of at least 15 planes in one day, they decided to give up on taking Lanzhou.
[
In 1937, a transport plane (number 1602) carrying 38 people crash landed without casualties at Gongxingdun Airport.]Civil Aviation Administration of China
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC; ) is the Chinese civil aviation authority under the Ministry of Transport. It oversees civil aviation and investigates aviation accidents and incidents. As the aviation authority responsible f ...
decided that the airport's location was too restrictive for the aviation needs of Lanzhou and chose a new site for Lanzhou's main airport at Zhongchuan. By 1970, Zhongchuan Airport was inaugurated and flights moved to there.
In 1976, the Gansu Aviation Sports School became based at Gongxingdun Airport.[
]
Former airlines and destinations
References
{{Airports in China
Defunct airports in China
Airports in Gansu
Airports disestablished in 1970
Buildings and structures in Lanzhou