Smirnykh () is an abandoned

Russian Air Force The Russian Air Force () is a branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the latter being formed on 1 August 2015 with the merging of the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the reb ...

airbase in

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

located 2 km east of the village of the same name. It appeared in June 1966 KH-7 imagery with a runway length of 2,000 m. It was expanded sometime after this to 2,500 m with a new extension of revetments added.

History

The base was originally built near the town of Smirnykh, a coaling and watering station for the Sakhalin railway. The airfield was built by the

Imperial Japanese Army The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...

in the early 20th century and was called Keton. After the Second World War, Southern Sakhalin was handed over to the Soviet Union, and the airbase was then expanded. The airfield was first detected by Western intelligence around 1962. By 1965 19 Yakovlev Yak-28P (ASCC: Firebar) were known to be stationed at the airfield. In October 1972 a US reconnaissance satellite assessment showed 17 Yak-28P long-range interceptors, 2

Antonov An-24 The Antonov An-24 (Russian/ Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-24) (NATO reporting name: Coke) is a 44-seat twin turboprop transport/passenger aircraft designed in 1957 in the Soviet Union by the Antonov Design Bureau and manufactured by the Kyiv ...

(ASCC: Coke) transports, and 1

Lisunov Li-2 The Lisunov Li-2 (NATO reporting name: Cab), originally designated PS-84, was a license-built Soviet-version of the Douglas DC-3. It was produced by Factory #84 in Khimki, Moscow-Khimki and, after the factory's evacuation in 1941, at the Tash ...

(ASCC: Cab) (DC-3 copy) transport. By the 1980s Smirnykh was home to a

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-sweep wing, variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan, Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB, design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generation jet fighter, ...

(ASCC: Flogger-G) interceptor regiment An ICAO report on the 1983 downing of

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007)In aviation, two types of Airline codes, airline designators are used. The flight number KAL 007, with the ICAO code for Korean Air Lines, was used by air traffic control. In ticketing, however, IAT ...

indicated

Soviet Air Defence Forces The Soviet Air Defence Forces (; ) was the air defence branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Formed in 1941, it continued being a service branch of the Russian Armed Forces after 1991 until it was merged into the Air Force in 1998. Unlike Western ...

(PVO) MiG-23 fighter aircraft from Smirnykh were scrambled, but it was an

Sukhoi Su-15 The Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO reporting name: Flagon) is a twinjet supersonic interceptor aircraft developed by the Soviet Union. It entered service in 1965 and remained one of the front-line designs into the 1990s. The Su-15 was designed to replace t ...

(ASCC: Flagon) jet from Dolinsk-Sokol which carried out the shootdown. The airfield is no longer in use and the runways have not been maintained in decades. The base was used by the: * 132nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment between 1945 and 1951 with the

Tupolev Tu-2 The Tupolev Tu-2 (development names ANT-58 and 103; NATO reporting name Bat) is a twin-engined Soviet high-speed daylight and frontline bomber aircraft used during World War II. The Tu-2 was tailored to meet a requirement for a high-speed bomber ...

(ASCC: Bat) * 301st Fighter Aviation Regiment during 1972 with the

Sukhoi Su-9 The Sukhoi Su-9 (Air Standardization Coordinating Committee, ASCC reporting name: Fishpot) is a single-engine, all-weather, missile-armed interceptor aircraft developed by the Soviet Union. Development The Su-9 emerged from aerodynamic studie ...

(ASCC: Fishpot) * 454th Bomber Aviation Regiment between 1945 and 1951 with the Tu-2 * 528th Fighter Aviation Regiment between 1945 and 1994

References

{{authority control Defunct airports in Russia Soviet Air Defence Force bases Sakhalin Airports in Sakhalin Oblast Airports built in the Soviet Union