Aviation Specials – May 2018

Toncontín gained a fearsome reputation due to high terrain, a hill at the end of its runway

and winds that buff et its thresholds. Action has been taken to alleviate some of the

problems, but it is still a tight squeeze for jets, as Bernardo Andrade explains.

T

egucigalpa, the capital of

Honduras, sits atop an active

seismic zone formed by the Central

American Volcanic Arc (CAVA). The

Cocos and Caribbean tectonic plates lay

off the coast to the west, and the intense

pressure produced by geological shifts

has shaped the peaks in the region’s

landscape for eons. More recently, the

country has been subject to political

turmoil, hurricanes and severe fl oods,

but these are not the only problems to

have aff ected the air operations. The

terrain makes the approach to Runway

02 rather challenging, and several

accidents have occurred over the

decades (see panel). This led the History

Channel’s Most

80 // Extreme Airports

TEGUCIGALPA

Extreme Airports television programme

to rank Toncontín International the

second most dangerous airport in the

world, a mantle that authorities have

recently tried their best to cast-off.

Small beginnings

The fi rst aircraft to arrive in the

locale, a Bristol, landed in 1921 on the

Comayagüela plain a mere two miles

(3km) from the city centre. In those

early days the area was just grass,

but a rudimentary airfi eld was soon

established without any delineated

runways, providing the freedom for

aircraft to take off and land into the

prevailing winds. Two years later the

local government acquired two Lincoln

Standard biplanes for passenger and

mail services and these aircraft were

based on the fi eld. As the popularity and

reliability of air travel increased, even

American aviator Charles Lindbergh

landed on the airstrip in his famous

aircraft Spirit of Saint Louis during 1928,

a year after he’d made the fi rst solo

crossing of the Atlantic from New York

to Paris.

Meanwhile, the mountainous terrain

surrounding the Comayagüela plain had

become a defensive asset during the

1924 Honduran Civil War. This led the

then President Tiburcio Carías Andino to

realise that aviation could not only provide

a means of transportation but play a role

in warfare. So, in 1931 the Honduran Air

Force was established on the airfi eld

(the armed forces continue to maintain

a signifi cant presence on the eastern

TAMING TO NCONTIN

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