Mataveri International Airport or Isla de Pascua Airport (IATA: IPC, ICAO: SCIP) is located at Hanga Roa on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) (Isla de Pascua in Spanish). The most remote airport in the world, Mataveri International Airport is 2,336 miles (3,759 km) from Santiago, Chile (SCL) which has scheduled flights to it on the Chilean carrier LATAM Chile. The runway starts just inland from the island's southeast coast at Mataveri and nearly reaches the west coast, almost separating the mountain of Rano Kau from the rest of the island.
The airport is the main point of entry for thousands of tourists who come to Easter Island to see its Moai statues. The airport also has a transit lounge used by passengers who are continuing onwards to or returning from Papeete, Tahiti, which is also serviced by LATAM Airlines.
Video Mataveri International Airport
History
Scheduled services from the Chilean mainland started in 1967 with a monthly Douglas DC-6B propliner flight operated by LAN-Chile that took nine hours, using a runway extended and paved for the use as a U.S. base. In 1970, services were upgraded with weekly Boeing 707-320 nonstop jet service to Santiago, Chile. Nonstop service to Papeete, Tahiti was also added during the late 1960s and the frequency doubled to twice-weekly with LAN-Chile providing direct connecting 707 service once a week between Easter Island and Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid in Europe via its Santiago hub. LAN-Chile then replaced its Boeing 707 flights with Boeing 767-200ER jet service and in 1993 was operating twice weekly round trip flights on a routing of Santiago (SCL) - Easter Island (IPC) - Papeete (PPT). The airline later operated Airbus A340 and Boeing 767-300ER wide body jetliners into the airport.
The airport's single runway is 3,318 m (10,885 ft) long. The airport was once designated as an abort site for the U.S. Space Shuttle when polar orbital flights from Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California were planned with this space launch activity then subsequently being cancelled. The project undertaken by NASA to lengthen the runway was completed in 1987 and enabled wide-bodied jets to use the airport, which further boosted tourism to the island.
Due to the lack of diversion airports between PPT (Tahiti) and South America except for IPC, the Chilean CAA prohibits more than one aircraft from the vicinity of IPC. Once an aircraft flying from South America is more than at the halfway point between South America and IPC, no other aircraft can be closer than the halfway point until the first aircraft successfully lands at IPC. This is because if an aircraft should have an accident that obstructs or closes the runway, other aircraft cannot land at IPC and would have to turn back.
The Isla de Pascua VOR-DME (Ident: IPA) and non-directional beacon (Ident: IPA) are located on the field.
There is a hill adjacent to the eastern end of the runway. Approach and departures to either end of the runway are over the water.
Maps Mataveri International Airport
Airlines and destinations
LATAM Chile, the successor to LAN-Chile, currently operates Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft to the island on its scheduled services.
See also
- Extreme points of Earth
- Shuttle Down, a 1980 novel by American author G. Harry Stine (Lee Correy), which gives a fictional account of the Space Shuttle Atlantis making an emergency landing at Easter Island following launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
- Transport in Chile
- List of airports in Chile
References
External links
- Airport information for SCIP at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.
- OpenStreetMap Mataveri
- Island heritage photos
- Live camera at airport
- Current weather for SCIP at NOAA/NWS
Source of article : Wikipedia
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