aviation
Video shows the craziest airport in the world – the Chinese put the airport on a ridge
Surreal shot of the runway
© Wushan Airport / PR
The top of Mount Taohua was blown up to make room for a 2600 meter runway. The project was worked on for six years, and a video shows the construction work.
China built the craziest airport in the world. Wushan Airport is located at an altitude of 1800 meters, on the top of Mount Taohua. Or on what the summit used to be. The top of the mountain was blown off, then the mountain was massively heaped up with terraces to make room for the runway, the terminal and the aircraft parking lot.
The domestic airport has a runway that is 2,600 meters long and 45 meters wide. Liao Haobo, the deputy director of the project, told cqnews that more than 2,000 construction workers and 800 machines are working at the same time. The airport is said to have cost $253 million and was completed in August 2019. A video shows the incredible construction. The airport proudly calls itself the “airport in the clouds”.
The runway relieves the pressure on Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, which handles about 40 million passengers annually. Only domestic flights land on the mountain. The whole project is as grandiose as it is megalomaniac. In addition to the massive intervention in the natural mountain world, practical questions arise. The runway is in the high mountains, goods and passengers first have to be brought up the mountain. Then there’s the weather. In general, winds and storms will be stronger at high altitudes than near the ground, which will also affect air traffic