Tenerife North Airport
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| Tenerife North Airport Aeropuerto de Tenerife Norte |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: TFN – ICAO: GCXO | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public | ||
| Operator | Aena | ||
| Location | Santa Cruz de Tenerife | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 2002 ft / 610 m | ||
| Coordinates | 28°28′53.94″N 16°20′18.4″W / 28.48165°N 16.338444°WCoordinates: 28°28′53.94″N 16°20′18.4″W / 28.48165°N 16.338444°W | ||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 12/30 | 11,155 | 3,400 | Asphalt |
| Statistics (2007) | |||
| Number of passengers | 4,125,131 | ||
| Aircraft movements | 65,843 | ||
| Source: AENA[1] | |||
Tenerife North Airport (IATA: TFN, ICAO: GCXO), formerly Los Rodeos Airport, is one of the two international airports on the island of Tenerife, Spain. It is located 11 km (7 mi) by road from Santa Cruz. The airport is the site of the worst accident in aviation history: 583 passengers and crew were killed when a Boeing 747 taking off collided with another on the ground in 1977. Combined with the Tenerife South Airport, the largest flock of passenger movement Canary Islands 12,764,375 passengers (AENA report) and low-cost airlines, with a total of 20. Tenerife is the only Canary Islands with two airports as the other have only one.
Today, TFN is an inter-island hub, connecting all seven Canary Islands, and offers connections to the Spanish Peninsula, Europe, and North America. The route between Tenerife North and Gran Canaria is the airport's busiest with an average of 40 flights per day.
In 2007, the airport handled 4,125,131 passengers and 65,843 aircraft movements.[1] The busiest air route from the airport in terms of passengers is the one to Madrid Airport, at over one million passengers a year.
Contents |
[edit] Buildings
A new terminal was inaugurated in 2002, comprising car park, motorway access ramps, and four-story terminal building, with 12 gates. The airport regained its international status when flights to Caracas began. An inter-island domestic area was opened in 2005.
[edit] History
Many years before the airport had even been built, the field at Los Rodeos was hastily prepared to accommodate the first (though unofficial) flight into Tenerife operated by an Arado VI (D-1594) aircraft operating from Berlin on behalf of Deutsche Lufthansa.
In May 1930, the Compañía de Líneas Aéreas Subvencionadas S.A. (C.L.A.S.S.A.) established the first air link between the Spanish mainland and the Canary Islands using a Ford 4-AT Trimotor (M-CKKA), which took off from Getafe, Madrid to the Los Rodeos field via Casablanca, Cape Juby and Gando in Gran Canaria.
After the final location of the airport had been decided, funds were gathered between 1935 and 1939 to build a small hangar and begin expanding the airstrip which would become Los Rodeos .
In July 1936 Francisco Franco flew from here after taking over the island to invade the mainland and start the Spanish civil war. Operations into Los Rodeos recommenced on 23rd of January 1941 with a De Havilland DH89A Dragon Rapide operating an Iberia flight from Gando in Gran Canaria.
By 1946, more hangars, a passenger terminal and an 800m paved runway had been built, and the airport was officially opened to all national and international traffic. The runway was stretched at various times during the 1940s and 1950s, reaching a length of 2,400m in 1953, by which time the airport was also equipped with runway edge lighting and an air-ground radio, enabling night operations.
By 1964, runway 12-30 had been stretched to 3,000m to accommodate the DC-8, new navigation aids were installed, and the apron was expanded to provide more parking spaces for aircraft. In 1971, with the prospect of the Boeing 747 flying into the airport, the runway was reinforced and an ILS (Instrument Landing System) was installed.
In the 1977 Tenerife disaster, a PanAm and a KLM Boeing 747 collided on the runway, killing 583 people, the highest number of fatalities (excluding ground fatalities) of any single accident in aviation history. In response, a new airport, Tenerife South Airport, was inaugurated on November 6, 1978. It is situated at sea level which averts the occurrence of fog, one of the reasons for the crash.
[edit] Airlines and destinations
| Airlines | Destinations |
|---|---|
| Air Berlin | Düsseldorf |
| Air Europa | Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Málaga, Miami, Seville |
| Binter Canarias | El Hierro, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, La Palma, Lanzarote, Las Palmas |
| Finnair | Helsinki |
| Hamburg International | Hamburg [begins January 6, 2010] |
| Iberia | Caracas [seasonal], Madrid |
| Iberia operated by Air Nostrum | Málaga, Valencia |
| Islas Airways | Fuerteventura, La Palma, Lanzarote, Las Palmas |
| Livingston Airlines | Milan-Malpensa |
| Santa Barbara Airlines | Caracas |
| Spanair | Barcelona, Madrid |
| Vueling Airlines | Barcelona, Madrid, Seville |
[edit] Accidents and incidents
Tenerife North Airport was the scene of the Tenerife airport disaster, to date the worst accident in aviation history. The accident took place on 27 March 1977, when KLM Flight 4805 collided during take-off with Pan Am Flight 1736, which was taxiing. Amongst the passengers and crew of the two aircraft, 583 were killed and 61 survived. Neither flight was originally scheduled to be at the airport; the original destination of both was Gran Canaria airport, they were diverted to Tenerife North (then Tenerife Los Rodeos) as a result of a bombing at Gran Canaria.
Accidents at the airport include:
| Date | Airline | Type | Registration | Flight | Fatalities/People on flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965-05-05 | Iberia | Lockheed L-1049G | EC-AIN | 401 | 30/49 |
| 1965-12-07 | Spantax | Douglas DC-3 | EC-ARZ | 32/32 | |
| 1970-01-05 | Iberia | Fokker F-27 Friendship 600 | EC-BOD | 0/49 | |
| 1972-12-03 | Spantax | Convair CV-990 | EC-BZR | 155/155 | |
| 1977-03-27 | Pan American World Airways | Boeing 747-121 | N736PA | 1736 | 335/396 |
| KLM Royal Dutch Airlines | Boeing 747-206B | PH-BUF | 4805 | 248/248 | |
| 1980-04-25 | Dan-Air | Boeing 727-46 | G-BDAN | 1008 | 146/146 |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Los Rodeos Airport |
- Tenerife North Airport Official Website
- Airport information for GCXO at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.
- Air View
- Airport Terminal
- Airport Interior
- Airlines Pilot Association (ALPA) Article on 1977 KLM-PanAm disaster
