Francisco Mendes International Airport
Former airport of Praia, Cape Verde (1961–2005)
Francisco Mendes International Airport (IATA: RAI, ICAO: GVFM) was an airport located on Santiago Island in Cape Verde. It was opened in 1961. It was located about 2 km (1.2 mi) east of central Praia in the southeastern part of the island of Santiago. After Cape Verdean independence, the airport was named after Francisco Mendes, a Guinea-Bissau independence activist and that country's first Prime Minister.
History
On 28 September 1998, a TACV de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter (registered D4-CAX) carrying Carlos Veiga, then Prime Minister of Cape Verde, 18 other passengers and three crew members crash-landed at the airport. There was one fatality (a bodyguard of the prime minister) and four people were injured.[1]
In late 2005, the airport was deactivated, and replaced by the new Praia International Airport (since 2012 Nelson Mandela International Airport).
References
- ^ Aviation Safety Network. "ASN aircraft accident Monday 28 September 1998". Retrieved 7 October 2018.
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Airports in Cape Verde
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