Airport type Public Serves Gaborone Hub for Air Botswana Address Gaborone, Botswana Elevation 1,006 m | Operator Civil Government Location Gaborone, Botswana Elevation AMSL 3,299 ft / 1,006 m Code GBE Municipality Gaborone | |
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Landing sir seretse khama international airport botswana fbsk
Sir Seretse Khama International Airport (IATA: GBE, ICAO: FBSK), located 15 kilometres (9 mi) north of Gaborone, is the main international airport of the capital city of Botswana. The airport is named for Sir Seretse Khama, the first president of Botswana. It was opened in 1984 and offers large capacity to handle regional and international traffic and has the largest passenger movement in the country.
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Incidents and accidents
On 11 October 1999, an Air Botswana pilot, Captain Chris Phatswe, commandeered a parked Aérospatiale ATR 42 aircraft A2-ABB without authorization in the early morning and took off. Once in the air, he asked by radio to speak to the president, Air Botswana's general manager, the station commander, central police station and his girlfriend, among others. Because the president was out of the country, he was allowed to speak to the vice president. In spite of all attempts to persuade him to land and discuss his grievances, he stated he was going to crash into some aircraft on the apron. After a total flying time of about 2 hours, he did two loops and then crashed at 200 knots (370 km/h; 230 mph) into Air Botswana's two other ATR 42s parked on the apron. The captain was killed but there were no other casualties.
Airline sources say the pilot had been grounded on medical reasons, refused reinstatement and regrounded until February 2000. Air Botswana operations were crippled, as the airline temporarily only had one aircraft left – a BAe 146 which was grounded with technical problems.
Botswana Defence Force Air Wing
Botswana Defence Force Air Wing VIP Flight Wing is based at the airport.