Old Beirut International Airport

Old Beirut International Airport (Arabic: مطار بيروت الدولي القديم) was officially known as Beirut International Airport, before the construction of the New Beirut International Airport in 1994, which was later renamed from Beirut International Airport to Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport in honor of the late former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri following his assassination earlier that year in 2005.^[1] The old Beirut International Airport was the only operational commercial international airport in Lebanon. It was located in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) from the city center, in the same location as the New Beirut International Airport. Old Beirut International Airport was the hub for Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), as well as the hub for the Lebanese cargo carrier TMA cargo and Wings of Lebanon before their respective collapses. It was the main port of entry into the country along with the Port of Beirut. The airport was managed and operated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which was operated within the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.

The old Beirut International Airport was envisioned even before Lebanon’s independence, from the early 1940s. The planning for construction of old Beirut International Airport started in 1945, its construction began in 1947, one year after Lebanon became independent from French rule; it opened for commercial use in 1950. The old Beirut International Airport covered an area of about three square-kilometers and was located about seven kilometers to Beirut’s south, replacing a much smaller Bir Hassan airfield located much closer to Lebanon’s capital, that was built by the French mandate authorities in 1930s. Old Beirut International Airport was by area the largest airport in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the time of its opening, and almost immediately became its premier airport, in part thanks to limited competition from neighbors, as well as by the fast and steady growth by the country's four local carriers at the time, Middle East Airlines (MEA) which was founded in 1945, Air Liban, Trans Mediterranean Airways (TMA), and Lebanese International Airways (LIA), and numerous other foreign carriers like British Overseas Airways Corporation (now British Airways) as well as with Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) , as well as other airlines including BOAC, Air France, KLM, Air India, Qantas, and a dozen others. At the time of its opening, Old Beirut International Airport terminal was very modern and it featured an excellent spotters terrace with a café. The airport consisted of two asphalt runways at the time. Runway 18/36 at 3,250 meters (10,663 ft) was used primarily for landings, while runway 03/21 at 3,180 metres (10,433 ft) was used primarily for take-offs.

By the late 1960s Old Beirut International Airport days were numbered, dark clouds where headed towards Lebanon. On the night of 28 December 1968, Israeli commandos carried out a surprise retaliatory attack on Beirut International Airport in response to an attack carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine two days earlier in Athens on an Israeli El Al Flight 253. The Israeli commandos managed to destroy 14 civilian Lebanese aircraft among them three aircraft belonging to the Lebanese operated national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA), Air Liban had merged with MEA by this time), the rest of the aircraft destroyed belonged to Trans Mediterranean Airways, and Lebanese International Airways. The Israeli commando attack caused serious devastation to the Lebanese aviation industry. Middle East Airlines managed to rebound quickly, but Lebanese International Airways went bankrupt and its employees were transferred to MEA. In hindsight, this raid not only heralded increased Israeli intervention in Lebanon, which would peak in the 1982 invasion that led to the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to Tunis and claimed at least 19,000 lives. It also marked the beginning of the end of Beirut’s role as a key Middle Eastern global hub. But the final blow that lead old Beirut International Airport to lose its status as one of the premier hubs of the Middle East was with the start of the 15-year-long Lebanese Civil War in April 1975 and lost virtually all of its airline services with the exception of two Lebanese carriers, Middle East Airlines and Trans Mediterranean Airways. Both airlines continued operating with the exception of certain periods of time when the airport itself was completely closed. Old Beirut International Airport despite the civil war conflict remained open for much of the 1975 till the end of Lebanese civil war in 1991, Even being renovated and modernized in 1977, only to be badly damaged five years later by Israeli shelling during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The airport was the site of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, in which 241 American servicemen were killed.^[2] Beirut old international airport runways was again renovated shortly after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the same year, and once again in 1984.^[3][4][1]

By the time the Lebanese civil war finally came ended in 1990, the Old Beirut International Airport along with Beirut hasd become shadows of their former selves., and needed an urgent a massive reconstruction program. A ten-year reconstruction program was launched in 1994 by the Lebanese government which included the construction of another terminal, two runways, a fire station, a power plant, a general aviation terminal, and an underground parking garage. Many structures, like the radar building, were rehabilitated. In 1998 the first phase of the new Beirut international airport terminal was completed. It was located immediately adjacent to the east of the old Beirut terminal and consists of gates 1–12. After the New Beirut international airport eastern terminal was inaugurated, the old terminal was demolished and construction on the western half began and was completed in 2000, however it was not inaugurated until 2002. This consists of gates 13–23.^[5][6]

The old Beirut International Airport runways now used as taxiways to connect to the new runways, is all that is left from old Beirut International Airport

Like Bir Hassan airport before it, old Beirut International Airport helped connect Lebanon with the rest of the world via the air travel route. But since it was the much more modern and larger Bir Hassan airfield, Lebanon and Beirut first civil commercial international airport. Old Beirut International Airport put Lebanon and Beirut city in the spot light as the center of aviation in the middle east at the time.^[3][7]

When the Lebanese people are asked to think of the Old Beirut International Airport positively now, their reaction is nostalgia for years that used to travel from it, that even to today regardless of the current more modern Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, see and remember the Old Beirut International Airport as the golden age of Lebanese commercial aviation.^[8]

• On 21 November 1959, Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202 crashed near Beirut on a flight from Beirut to Tehran, killing 24 of the 27 passengers and crew on board the Douglas DC-4
• On 23 February 1964, Vickers Viscount SU-AKX of United Arab Airlines was damaged beyond economic repair in a heavy landing.^[9]
• In September 1970, Pan Am Flight 93 was hijacked while flying to New York. The plane landed to refuel and pick up another PFLP hijacker. It was then flown to Cairo where it was blown up.
• On 30 September 1975 a Tupolev Tu-154 of Malév Hungarian Airlines, Malév Flight 240 crashed into the sea while approaching the airport. The cause and the circumstances remain mysterious, but it was most likely shot down[citation needed]. All 50 passengers and 10 crew were killed.
• On 17 May 1977, Antonov An-12, SP-LZA, a cargo plane leased by LOT Polish Airlines from the Polish Air Force along with its crew, flying to Lebanon with a cargo of fresh strawberries crashed 8 kilometers from Beirut airport, all 6 crew members and 3 passengers on board were killed. The plane crashed due to the crew being lost in translation (i.e. the Polish-speaking crew did not understand the Lebanese Arabic language), which led to the crew repeating to themselves the order to descend, ending up with the aircraft unwittingly flying into the side of a mountain.
• On 23 July 1979, a TMA Boeing 707-320C, on a test flight for four copilots due to be promoted to captains, crashed whilst on a third touch-and-go. The plane touched down but then yawed right to left to right again before the wing clipped the ground causing the plane to flip and come to rest inverted across a taxiway. All six crew members were killed.^[9]
• On 8 January 1987, Middle East Airlines Boeing 707-323C OD-AHB was destroyed by shelling after landing.^[10]

• Bir Hassan Airfield
• Beirut Air Base
• Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport
• List of airports in Lebanon