Željava Air Base, situated on the border between Croatia and

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and ...

under the Plješevica mountain, near the city of Bihać,

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...

, was the largest underground

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

and

military air base An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

, and one of the largest in Europe. The facilities are shared by the local governments of Bihać and

Lika-Senj County Lika-Senj County (, hr, Ličko-senjska županija) is a county in Croatia that includes most of the Lika region and some northern coastline of the Adriatic near the town of Senj, including the northern part of the Pag island. Its center is ...

in Croatia.

History

The "Objekat" series of military installations can be found in secluded but strategically important areas within the former Yugoslavia, and the construction of these military bases were initialized by the SFRJ's defence ministry. During the Yugoslav Wars, most of these bases were used by the Serbs in certain operations, but due to extenuating circumstances imposed by the Croat forces, they were destroyed and later rendered useless for military use. Nowadays, they are popular for urban exploration, although it is risky due to the possibility of anti-personnel landmines being located in unexplored areas. However, some were spared the destruction due to other circumstances where the Serbs did not control these installations. An example of some that are still in use is the D-0 Armijska Ratna Komanda nuclear bunker in Konjić, however the latter was turned into an art complex, but is still owned by the Ministry of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The construction of the Željava or Bihać Air Base (

code-name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

d ''"Objekat 505"'') was inspired by mountain hangars used by the Swedish

Göta Wing Göta Wing ( sv, Göta flygflottilj), also F 9 Säve, or simply F 9, was a Swedish Air Force wing with the main base located near Gothenburg in south-west Sweden. History The decision to set up the air wing was made in 1936 to defend the impor ...

(F 9), began in 1948 and was completed in 1968. During those two decades, SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) spent approximately $6 billion on its construction, three times the combined current annual military budgets of Serbia and Croatia. It was one of the largest and most expensive military construction projects in Europe.

Description

The role of the facility was to establish, integrate and coordinate a nationwide

early warning radar An early-warning radar is any radar system used primarily for the long-range detection of its targets, i.e., allowing defences to be alerted as ''early'' as possible before the intruder reaches its target, giving the air defences the maximum ...

network in SFRJ akin to

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...

in the US. The complex was designed and built to sustain a direct hit from a 20-

kiloton TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a ...

nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

, equivalent to that dropped on

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

Strategic role

The main advantage of the base was the strategic location of its ''"Celopek"'' intercept and surveillance radar on Mount Pljesevica, at the nerve center of an advanced integrated air defence network covering the airspace and territory of Yugoslavia, and possibly further. In addition to its main roles as a protected radar installation, control centre, and secure communications facility, the airbase contained tunnels housing two full fighter squadrons, one reconnaissance squadron, and associated maintenance facilities. The units based there were the 124.LAE (Fighter Aviation Squadron) and 125.LAE, both equipped with

MiG-21bis The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nickna ...

fighter aircraft, and the 352.IAE (Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron), equipped with MiG-21R reconnaissance-fighter aircraft. The tunnels had a total length of 3.5 kilometres, and the bunker had four entrances protected by 100-ton pressurized doors, three of which were customized for use by

fixed-wing aircraft A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are dist ...

. Eventually, it was hoped that the base would be re-equipped with the indigenously developed Yu Supersonik aircraft.

Underground "KLEK" complex

The underground facility was lined with semicircular concrete shields, arranged every ten metres, to cushion the impact of incoming munitions. The complex included an underground water source, power generators, crew quarters, and other strategic military facilities. It also housed a mess hall that could feed 1,000 people simultaneously, along with stores of food, fuel and arms sufficient to last 30 days. Fuel was supplied by a 20-kilometre underground pipe network connected to a military warehouse on Pokoj Hill near Bihać.

Surface

Above ground, the facility had five runways and within the immediate vicinity of the base, there were numerous short-range mobile tracking and targeting radars; surface to air missile sites equipped with; 2K12 "Kub" (NATO: SA-6) mobile

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...

interceptor systems, motorized infantry bases, two Quick Reaction Alert aircraft ready for take off at any moment, military police stations, and a hunting lodge used by civilian and military leaders on occasional leisure trips. Access points were heavily monitored and guards were authorized to fire upon anyone attempting to enter without authorization. However, in practice only special permits were required and unauthorized visitors usually turned away.

Destruction

The airbase was used intensively in 1991, during the

Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...

. During its withdrawal, the

Yugoslav People's Army The Yugoslav People's Army (abbreviated as JNA/; Macedonian and sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска народна армија, Jugoslovenska narodna armija; Croatian and bs, Jugoslavenska narodna armija; sl, Jugoslovanska ljudska ar ...

destroyed the runway by filling pre-built spaces (designed for the purpose) with explosives and detonating them. To prevent any possible further use of the complex by Croatian and Bosnia-Herzegovinan forces, the

Military of Serbian Krajina The Serbian Army of Krajina ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Srpska vojska Krajine, SVK, Српска војска Крајине, СВК) was the armed forces of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK). Also known as the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina or ...

completed the destruction in 1992 by setting off an additional 56 tonnes of explosives. The ensuing explosion was so powerful that it shook the nearby city of Bihać. Residents of nearby villages claimed that smoke continued to rise from the tunnels for six months after the explosion.

Current status

Local police forces and the CPA currently use the area to train canines with actual land mines, given the extensive number of mines still in the vicinity. Because of the mines, extreme caution must be used when visiting the Željava complex. In November 2000, a Bosnian Air Force Major died after setting off a PROM-2 anti-personnel mine while searching for mushrooms. The toll of the destruction on base buildings and equipment is incalculable and caused great environmental damage. Potential reconstruction endeavors are limited by a lack of financial resources. An international border bisects the base area, and the entire area is heavily mined. The barracks in the nearby village of Ličko Petrovo Selo are operated by the

Croatian Army The Croatian Army ( hr, Hrvatska kopnena vojska or HKoV) is the largest and most significant component of the Croatian Armed Forces (CAF). Role and deployment The fundamental role and purpose of the Croatian Army is to protect vital national i ...

. Today, the base is a common waypoint for illegal migrants. A facility for asylum seekers was scheduled to open there in 2004 or 2005, but the idea was abandoned, and new plans were developed for it to become part of the

Slunj Slunj ( Hungarian ''Szluin'', old German ''Sluin'', Latin ''Slovin'', archaic Croatian ''Slovin grad'') is a town in the mountainous part of Central Croatia, located along the important North-South route to the Adriatic Sea between Karlovac and ...

military training grounds, and barracks from the nearby Udbina complex. However, this idea was dropped in line with the agreement between the countries of former Yugoslavia which bans any military facility up to 15 km inside the borders. The Bihać Municipality launched an initiative to open a local airport using the runway.

References

External links

Željava runways layout & numbering scheme
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeljava Airbase Yugoslav Air Force bases Airports in Bosnia and Herzegovina Airports in Croatia History of Lika Buildings and structures demolished in 1992 Bihać Aircraft underground hangars in Europe Nuclear bunkers in Bosnia and Herzegovina Subterranean structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina Airports disestablished in 1992 History of Bihać