Airport type Military Location Franz Josef Land 4,921 1,500 Elevation 18 m | Operator Russian Air Force Elevation AMSL 59 ft / 18 m Address Franz Josef Land, Russia | |
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Nagurskoye (Russian: Нагу́рское; also written as Nagurskoye, or Nagurskaja) (ICAO: UODN) is an airfield in Franz Josef Land in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia located 1350 km north of Murmansk. It is an extremely remote Arctic base. Nagurskoye was built in 1950s as a staging base for Soviet Long Range Aviation bombers to reach the US, and was maintained by the Russian Air Force agency OGA (Arctic Control Group), which maintained all Arctic bomber staging facilities. An An-72 (Coaler) cargo plane crashed here on December 23, 1996 while attempting to land, perhaps one of the northernmost plane crashes ever. The airfield is believed to be operational, maintained by Frontier Guards (FSB) and capable of servicing An-26 and An-72 aircraft.
Satellite photographs of September 2015 show a new base without armored vehicles or air defenses. Instead, the base consists of a central structure, several supporting structures such as fuel depots and heating installations, old and new runways, as well as anchorages that allow for the delivery of construction materials and supplies.
The air base is undergoing expansion, expected to be complete by 2017. This includes a new 2,500 meter landing strip, living quarters for 150 soldiers, and a fleet of Foxhound or Fullback fighter jets.