Quzhou Airport, also called Quzhou Air Base () is a

dual-use In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.

military and civil airport located 2.9 kilometers east of the city of

Quzhou Quzhou is a prefecture-level city in western Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the upper course of the Qiantang River, it borders Hangzhou to the north, Jinhua to the east, Lishui to the southeast, and the provinces o ...

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangs ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Originally only a military airfield for the

People's Liberation Army Air Force The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular armed forces of the Peo ...

, the airport was first expanded for use by American bombers during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and was later occupied by Japanese troops. A small passenger terminal opened to commercial flights on 26 November 1993, though expanded commercial use of the airport has been hampered by continued heavy military presence due to the airport's proximity to the

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated b ...

and

Taiwan Strait The Taiwan Strait is a -wide strait separating the island of Taiwan and continental Asia. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to the East China Sea to the north. The narrowest part is wide. The Taiwan Strait is itself a s ...

.衢州民航站
Airlines operating out of Quzhou Airport generally operate medium to large

narrow-body aircraft A narrow-body aircraft or single-aisle aircraft is an airliner arranged along a single aisle, permitting up to 6-abreast seating in a cabin less than in width. In contrast, a wide-body aircraft is a larger airliner usually configured with mult ...

, such as the

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

. Quzhou's commercial passenger terminal is unique in being separated from the airport's two aircraft bays by a lake, requiring passengers to walk across a lengthy

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tra ...

before boarding. The airport serves as the base of operations for regional carrier Quzhou Airlines.

History

World War II

Originally known as Hangzhou Air Base, in 1937 the facility was renamed Quzhou Air Base. Following the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

in the winter of 1941, the airport began a major expansion for future use by

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. The airport's strategic location played a key role in

, with American aircraft frequenting the base for replenishment. In April 1942 the base was to serve as the refueling point for the

Doolittle Raiders The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, was an air raid on 18 April 1942 by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo City, Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first American air operation to stri ...

following the strike on

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, however because of incliment weather, all of them ran out of fuel prior to reaching the base, instead crash landing around the city of Quzhou. Chinese support from Quzhou drove the Japanese to launch the battle of Zhejiang and Jiangxi to suppress the airbase, with Japanese troops taking control of the base on June 3, 1942.

First Taiwan Strait Crisis

In the early hours of June 23, 1956, Lu Min, then-commander of the 34th Regiment, 12th Air Division of the PLAAF, took off from Quzhou Airport with a

MiG-17 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-17; NATO reporting name: Fresco) is a high-subsonic fighter aircraft produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. The MiG-17 w ...

fighter jet and shot down a

Republic of China Air Force The Republic of China Air Force, retroactively known by its historical name the Chinese Air Force and unofficially referred to as the Taiwanese Air Force, is the military aviation branch of the Republic of China Armed Forces, currently based i ...

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

over the

Guangfeng Guangfeng District () is a district of the city of Shangrao, located in Northeastern Jiangxi Province, Eastern China. The easternmost county-level division of Jiangxi, Guangfeng borders Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. It covers . The population i ...

and

Shangrao Shangrao () is a medium-sized prefecture-level city located in the northeast of Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. The city borders the province of Anhui to the north, the province of Zhejiang to the east, and the province of Fujian to t ...

areas of

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

province, marking the first time PLAAF air defenses managed to shoot down an enemy at night.

Military use

Located 500 km from Taiwan just at the edge of effective cruise missile and airstrike range, Quzhou is one of the largest and most important air bases of the PLAAF. The airport is fitted with a hardened

underground hangar An underground hangar is a type of hangar for military aircraft, usually dug into the side of a mountain for protection. It is bigger and more protected than a hardened aircraft shelter (HAS). An underground hangar complex may include tunnels cont ...

to protect aircraft from adversaries. The facility is home to the 29th Fighter Division, which flies the

Sukhoi Su-30MKK The Sukhoi Su-30MKK (NATO reporting name: Flanker-G)MKK stands for Russian ''Mnogofunktzionniy Kommercheskiy Kitayski'' (Cyrillic: Многофунктзионний Коммерческий Китайски), "Multifunctional Commercial for C ...

, and the 85th Fighter Brigade, equipped with the

Chengdu J-20 The Chengdu J-20 (), also known as ''Mighty Dragon'' (), is a twinjet all-weather stealth fighter aircraft developed by China's Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The J-20 is designed as an air ...

stealth fighter.

Civilian use

The airport has a 1,900 meter (8,200 ft) runway (class 4C) and a 3,440 square-meter terminal building. The airport can accommodate

and other medium to large narrow-body passenger aircraft. The passenger terminal building is 3,440 square meters, which can support 200 passengers during peak hours.

Airlines and destinations

References

{{authority control Airports in Zhejiang Chinese Air Force bases Airports established in 1993 1993 establishments in China