Puneet Varma (Editor)

Ugolny Airport

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Airport type
  
Public / Military

Hub for
  
Chukotavia

01/19
  
3,500

Elevation
  
197 m

Serves
  
Anadyr

Location
  
Anadyr, Russia

Elevation AMSL
  
194 ft / 59 m

Code
  
DYR

Phone
  
+7 427 322-77-77

Ugolny Airport

Operator
  
Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Chukotavia"

Address
  
Ugolnye Kopi, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, 689501

Ugolny Airport (Russian: Аэропорт Угольный) (also Leninka, Ugolnyye Kopi, Ugolnoye) (IATA: DYR, ICAO: UHMA) is a mixed-use military and civil airfield in Siberia located 11 km east of Anadyr, separated from the town by the waters of Anadyrsky Liman. The airfield was originally constructed sometime in the 1950s as a staging base for Long Range Aviation bombers such as the Tupolev Tu-95 and Tupolev Tu-22M (as a so-called 'bounce' airdrome), but during the Cold War years it become the primary hub for civilian flights in the Chukotka region.

The Soviet-built Ilyushin Il-62 was a workhorse of the route from Moscow Domodedovo International Airport to Anadyr for many decades. There is occasional charter aircraft service from Nome, Alaska to Anadyr.

Anadyr's history as a bomber base dates back to the 1950s and the Russian Air Force's OGA (Arctic Control Group) is responsible for maintaining the facility. Interceptors such as the Sukhoi Su-15TM were based at Anadyr from the 1960s to the early 1990s; in 1982, the 171st Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO was transferred from Bombora airfield, Gudauta, in the Abkhazian ASSR of the Georgian SSR to Ugolny. The 171st Regiment reported to the 23rd Air Defence Corps, 11th PVO Army. The regiment was disbanded in 1992. No fighters are currently based there. In 2001 the airfield was visited by Tupolev Tu-95MS and Ilyushin Il-78 aircraft on exercise from Engels air base.

It was featured in the American novel Flight of the Old Dog.

Owing to its geographic location, its long, concrete-reinforced, heavy load-bearing runway, as well as its modern terminal with jet bridges, the airport is well-suited and well-situated for emergency diversion at roughly the midpoint of the northern route trans-Pacific routes. On 2 July 2013 a Korean Air Boeing 777-300 performing a scheduled flight from Chicago to Seoul made an emergency landing at Ugolny after one of its engines had quit in flight.

Ground transportation

The airport is located on the opposite site of the Anadyr River compared to the city. Transport by summer is by boat, by winter by a road on the ice, and for a period in spring and fall, only helicopter.

References

Ugolny Airport Wikipedia