K50 Airstrip is an

airstrip An aerodrome, airfield, or airstrip is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for public or private use. Aerodromes in ...

in the

Lower Shabelle Lower Shabelle (, , , ) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southern Somalia. Geography Lower Shabelle is bordered by the regions of Banaadir, Middle Shabelle (Shabeellaha Dhexe), Hiran, Bay, Middle Jubba (Jubbada Dhexe) and by the ...

region of

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

. It serves the capital city,

Mogadishu Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...

, and was at times its main airport.

Overview

The name refers to the airstrip's location on the country's main NE/SW road, about 50 kilometres south-west of

. In the late 2000s, K50 served as Mogadishu's main airport while

Aden Adde International Airport Aden Adde International Airport (, ) , formerly known as Mogadishu International Airport, is an international airport serving Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. It is named after Aden Abdullah Osman Daar, the first President of Somalia. Orig ...

was briefly shut down due to the 2006–2009 War in Somalia. The Somali-owned,

Dubai Airport Dubai International Airport () is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic as of 2024. It is also the busiest airport in the Middle East as ...

-based

Daallo Airlines Daallo Airlines is a Somali-owned airline based at Dubai Airport Free Zone in Al Garhoud, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airline operates scheduled services in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. It is banned from flying in the European ...

operated routes to and from K50 at one time. The airstrip was mentioned in the book Quiet Warriors: Veteran's Military Service Memories, written by Blake E. Edwards.

Facilities

The airstrip resides at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

. It has one

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

designated 04/22 with a compacted

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

surface measuring .

Airlines and destinations

The following

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

s offer scheduled passenger service:

References

External links

Aeronautical chart
at SkyVector Airports in Somalia Lower Shabelle Buildings and structures in Mogadishu {{Somalia-airport-stub