Ísafjörður Airport ( ) is an airport serving

Ísafjörður Ísafjörður (pronounced , meaning ''ice fjord'', literally ''fjord of ices'') is a town in the northwest of Iceland. The oldest part of Ísafjörður with the town centre is located on a spit of sand, or ''eyri'', in Skutulsfjörður, a fjord ...

, a town in the

Westfjords The Westfjords or West Fjords (, ) is a large peninsula in northwestern Iceland and an administrative region, the least populous in the country. It lies on the Denmark Strait, facing the east coast of Greenland. It is connected to the rest of I ...

()

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

in northwestern

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

History

Planning for the airport started in 1958 construction of the runway started the same year. It was originally 1,100 meters long and the cost of the construction was 4.8 million ISK. It was formally opened on 2 October 1960 with ''Gljáfaxi'', a

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by the 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 ...

from Flugfélag Íslands, being the first plane to land on the airport.

Approach

Located in a

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

, the approach to the runway requires aircraft to fly close to the surrounding terrain, making it unique and more challenging than most airports. Approaches generally cannot be straight-in for either direction, and when landing to the northeast, a full 180 degree turn must be made before touchdown. The sharp turn and the approach is featured as one of the landing challenges in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

Airlines and destinations

Statistics

Passengers and movements

Control tower.

Incidents

On 20 March 1982, the left engine of Flugleiðir's Fokker F27 Friendship, with registration TL-FLM, blew up during takeoff from Ísafjörður Airport, at the altitude of 490 feet. The pilots managed to put out the fire but could not lower the left landing gear due to the damage it sustained in the explosion. Instead of trying to land on the narrow Ísafjörður airport with only two wheels down, the captain decided to fly about 230 km to the much larger Keflavík Airport to attempt an emergency landing there. Despite the front part of the engine almost breaking off in the explosion, the plane managed to land in Keflavík with minimal additional damage to the plane. All 25 people on board survived without injuries.

Notes

References

External links

Extreme Airport Approach
video
Official approach documentation

OpenStreetMap - Ísafjörður
Airports in Iceland Westfjords {{Iceland-transport-stub