Ellinikon International Airport

Ellinikon International Airport , sometimes spelled Hellinikon (in Greek Ελληνικόν) was the international airport of Athens for sixty years up until 2001 when it was replaced by Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport. It is located 5mi/7km S of Athens, and just west of Glyfada. It was named after the Greek city Elliniko (Elleniko).

The airport had two terminals; the west terminal for Olympic Airways and the east terminal for international flights. Its IATA code of ATH is now used at Venizelos. It is bounded by residential houses, beaches in the west and in the south by the wooded trees of the Glyfada Golf Club along with the Ellinikon-Glyfada municipal boundary.

After its closure to passenger traffic, the northwest portion of the airport was redeveloped, with runways being converted into a sports park that housed the venues for canoe/kayak slalom, field hockey, baseball, and softball during the 2004 Summer Olympics. Other Olympic-related upgrades to the airport included refitting one of the airport's western hangars to become the main Olympic fencing venues and one of the larger Olympic indoor basketball arenas. Although these massive upgrades changed the northern and western portions of Ellinikon, part of the runway still exists and there is a chance that it will remain in use as a general aviation airport (with a significantly reduced runway). The Athens radar center is also still based there.

Since the end of the 2004 Summer Olympics, there have been discussions about developing what remains of the old airport and its runways into an urban park in order to alleviate Athens' need for more green spaces. If this project is realized, the proposed Hellenikon metropolitan park would be one of the largest in Europe.

History

The airport was built in 1938. In 1963, the Finnish star architect Eero Saarinen designed the East Terminal building. Prior to closing its passenger service, the airport was serving 12 million passengers per year. During the Cold War, the Greek government allowed the United States Air Force to use the airport from 1945 until 1993 as a staging field for Air Transport Command on flights between Rome and the Middle East and to process U.S. aid to Greece and Turkey under the Marshall Plan with cargo and transport aircraft. Known originally as Athenai Air Base until about 1975 when it was renamed Hellenikon Air Base, the 7206th Air Base Group provided a base of operations for the 6916th Security squadron (electronic aerial surveillance of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East), airlift evacuation operations from Middle East (1967), Cyprus (1975), Ethiopia (1977), and Iran (1979, 1981). The American base also provided administrative and logistical support to U.S. units and organizations in Greece, the Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean, and parts of Africa.

Incidents

• August 5, 1973: Two Palestinian gunmen claiming to represent Black September fire on travelers in a crowded TWA passenger lounge, killing five and wounding fifty-five.
• September 8, 1974: TWA Flight 841, en route from Ellinikon to Rome, crashed 18 minutes after take-off in what was later determined to be a bombing.
• December 23, 1975: Richard S. Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens, was shot and killed in front of his wife outside his home. The left-wing November 17 urban guerrilla group was responsible.
• June 27, 1976: Air France Flight 139, en route from Ellinikon to Paris, was hijacked to Benghazi and Entebbe.
• June 14, 1985: TWA Flight 847, en route from Ellinikon to Rome, was hijacked to Beirut and Algiers repeatedly.
• November 14, 1985: EgyptAir Flight 648, en route from Ellinikon to Cairo, was hijacked to Malta.

The airport was also the destination point of two attacked aircraft:

• August 29, 1969: TWA Flight 840, en route from Rome to Ellinikon, was hijacked by PFLP terrorists to Damascus.
• April 2, 1986: The same route, TWA Flight 840, also from Rome to Ellinikon, was bombed, resulting in four people's being sucked out of the plane to their deaths. The plane landed safely.

See also

• United States Air Forces in Europe
• Eero Saarinen structures

References

• Endicott, Judy G. (1999) Active Air Force wings as of 1 October 1995; USAF active flying, space, and missile squadrons as of 1 October 1995. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. CD-ROM.
• Fletcher, Harry R. (1989) Air Force Bases Volume II, Active Air Force Bases outside the United States of America on 17 September 1982. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0912799536
• Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947-1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0912799129.

External links

• Information on Ellinikon Airport
• Photos from Ellinikon Airport at Airliners.net
• - List of incidents to/from Athens Airport

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Last updated on Sunday February 10, 2008 at 16:29:39 PST (GMT -0800)
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