Shanghai Longhua Airport
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Shanghai Longhua Airport (上海龙华机场) , then called Shanghai Lunghwa Airport, was a converted
general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...
airport and
PLAAF 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 P ...
airfield located south of downtown
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
, China, on the bank of the Huangpu River. It opened in the early 1920s and served as the city's airport until the 1950s when
Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport is one of the two international airports of Shanghai and a significant airline hub of China. Hongqiao Airport mainly serves domestic and regional flights, although the airport also serves international fl ...
opened. Thereafter, it was one of two general aviation airports serving Shanghai and also served as an emergency landing site for police, fire and rescue operations southwest of the city. The airport was eventually closed at 1966, and the airport grounds were slowly built over though a period of between 1993 and 2016.


History

The site began airfield operations in late 1922 under the
Beiyang government The Beiyang government (), officially the Republic of China (), sometimes spelled Peiyang Government, refers to the government of the Republic of China which sat in its capital Peking ( Beijing) between 1912 and 1928. It was internationally ...
. In the early 1930s, the main, semi circular
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
terminal was built, along with the main ATC tower on the top of the main terminal, which still exists today, making it the last structure still remaining on what was once the airport. In the 1930s-1940s, during its golden age, the airport was known as the most popular airport for amphibious aircraft and the biggest airport of the
Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...
at the time. After the
Battle of Shanghai The Battle of Shanghai () was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan The also ...
,
Imperial Japanese Airways was the national airline of the Empire of Japan during World War II. History With the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, there was a tremendous need for air transport capability by the Japanese military, which had traditionally drawn on th ...
operated services from Longhua to Fukuoka and Taipei during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Additionally, the tarmac was expanded to accommodate at least 100 aircraft (before 1937, only 10 airplanes could be parked at the tarmac), 2 gravel runways were added, making Longhua Airport one of China's first airport with more than one runway built. After the end of
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 opposing ...
, basic equipment such as power supply, radar, and communication systems were renovated and improved. Hence, the airport became a hub for
China National Aviation Corporation The China National Aviation Corporation () was a Chinese airline which was nationalized after the Chinese Communist Party took control in 1949, and merged into the People's Aviation Company of China () in 1952. It was a major airline under the ...
(CNAC), as well as a famous stopover for many international airlines flying to Hong Kong, China, or Japan.
Northwest Orient Airlines Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines ...
began service to Longhua in 1947, stopping there en-route from the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and Japan to the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, and flew this route until suspending service in 1949.
Hong Kong Airways Hong Kong Airways was a flag carrier of British Hong Kong during the late 1940s and 1950s. Context of launch In 1946 Jardine Air Maintenance Company (JAMCo) had been formed to serve the rapidly expanding portfolio of airlines serving Hong ...
began scheduled service to Hong Kong in 1948. The People's Liberation Army took over the facility in 1949 following the Kuomintang Civil War, and maintained it as a civil airport until 1966 when all remaining passenger services were moved to Hongqiao. A flying school used the old hangars of the airport. A single runway (18/36) is now built over and the old terminal in now surrounded by apartments. Although the runway no longer exists and a helipad is built nearby, an Ilysuhin Il-14 (formerly
CAAC Airlines CAAC Airlines (), formerly the People's Aviation Company of China (中國人民航空公司), was the airline division of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the monopoly civil airline in the People's Republic of China. It was f ...
), an
Antonov An-24 The Antonov An-24 (Russian/Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-24) ( NATO reporting name: Coke) is a 44-seat twin turboprop transport/passenger aircraft designed in 1957 in the Soviet Union by the Antonov Design Bureau and manufactured by Kyiv, Ir ...
(formerly
China Eastern Airlines China Eastern Airlines Corporation Limited (), also known as China Eastern, is an airline headquartered in the China Eastern Airlines Building, on the grounds of Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in Changning District, Shanghai. It i ...
), and 2 Chinese built Antonov An-2 (formerly used as a general aviation in the 1960s) still existed on the tarmac, although they are no longer usable. KLM's first flight ever to Shanghai occurred in 1948, when it landed at Longhua after stopovers in Bangkok and Djakarta. Services halted in the Communist revolution and resumed again in 1996, which was then already operating at Hongqiao. Today, as
Pudong Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name ''Pudong'' was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic cit ...
is already opened back then (since 1999), it still operates daily flights from Amsterdam to Shanghai.


Former airlines and destinations

Before 1949, several international airlines operated at this airport, which is biggest in the Orient before being surpassed by others. It was taken over by the People's Liberation Army and still served as civil airport for CAAC until 1966.


Gallery

File:Longhua (Longhwa) Airport in 1920s.jpg, Aerial view of the airport, 1920s File:Shanghai LungHuaAirport ca1931.jpg, Aerial view of the airport, 1931 File:Longhua (Longhwa) Airport in 1951.gif, Aircraft at maintenance hangar, February 1951 File:Rebecca Chan Chung at Longhua Airport in front of a CNAC C-46.jpg, Rebecca Chan Chung at Longhua Airport, in front of a CNAC Curtiss C-46 (c.1947) File:Longhua Airport 1940s.png, alt=China National Aviation Corporation DC-3 at Lunghwa., CNAC Douglas DC-3 being repaired at Longhua (1940s)


Accidents and Incidents

* On 16 December 1946, a CNAC
DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...
struck 3 parked aircraft, killing five. * On the night of
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
1946, what was known as Shanghai's Black Christmas, a CNAC Curtiss C-46, enroute from Chongqing Baishiyi, crashed on approach near Longhua Airport in fog due to poor lighting on runways and poor visibility. Of 36 passengers on board, only 5 survived. On the same day, two DC-3s also crashed on approach in the same city, but both were destined for Jiangwan Airport. A total of 61 were killed in 3 respective aircraft, and a person on the ground.


References


External links

*
Photos of Shanghai - Longhua Airport (ZSSL)
at
Airliners.net Airliners.net is an aviation website that includes an extensive photo database of aircraft and airports, as well as a forum catering to aviation enthusiasts. Created by Johan Lundgren, Jr., the site originated in 1996 as ''Pictures of Modern Air ...
{{authority control Airports in Shanghai Defunct airports in China Xuhui District Buildings and structures completed in the 1930s