Thọ Xuân Airport, formerly Sao Vàng Airport ( vi, Sân bay Sao Vàng, vi, Sân bay Thọ Xuân) (also known as Thanh Hoá Air Base or Bái Thượng Air Base), is an airport located in Sao Vàng town in Thọ Xuân District, Thanh Hóa Province, 45 km northwest of the provincial capital

Thanh Hóa Thanh Hóa () is the capital of Thanh Hóa Province. The city is situated in the east of the province on the Ma River (Sông Mã), about 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of Hanoi and 1560 kilometers (969 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City. Thanh ...

. The airport is currently operated by

Vietnam People's Air Force The Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF, ), formally refers itself as the Air Defence - Air Force (ADAF, ) or the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF, ), is the Air force, aerial warfare service branch of Vietnam. It is the successor of the former North V ...

(VPAF). This airport handled 90,000 passengers in 2013, 160,000 passengers in 2014 and is estimated to serve 550,000 passengers in 2015, an increase of more than 300%

History

Vietnam War

The air base was built in 1968 and was used as a forward staging bases with MiGs temporarily deployed from other VPAF bases. On the morning of 13 April 1972 the airfield was attacked by B-52s, destroying one

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 ...

and cratering the runway. The base was attacked again by US Navy A-6s in May 1972. On 15 June U.S. fighter-bombers again attacked the base cratering the runway. The base was attacked again on 18 June with further damage to the runway. The base was attacked again on 11 and 12 November 1972 with six craters reported in the runway.

Current use

The base is home to the VPAF 923rd Fighter-bomber Squadron operating 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 ...

. The government of Vietnam implemented an upgrading project to add more civil facilities in order to turn the airport into a mixed civilian/military airport in early 2013. It is planned to become a

relief airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport, commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporar ...

for

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

Noi Bai International Airport Nội Bài International Airport ( vi, Sân bay quốc tế Nội Bài) in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, is the second largest and busiest airport for passenger traffic, after Tan Son Nhat International Airport. It is currently the main airpo ...

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

Government to implement three airport projects
on Vietnamnet.net
Thanh Hoa told to rethink civil airport project
''Saigon Times'' Airports in Vietnam Thanh Hóa Buildings and structures in Thanh Hóa province Installations of the Vietnam People's Air Force {{Vietnam-airport-stub