Iqaluit Airport

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{| class="infobox bordered" style="width: 220px; font-size: 95%;" |- ! colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Iqaluit Airport |- |align="center" colspan="4"|

Iqaluit Airport serves Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, and is part of Canada's National Airports System. It is located adjacent to the town and operated by the government of Nunavut. It hosts scheduled passenger service from Ottawa, Montreal, Rankin Inlet and Kuujjuaq on carriers such as First Air and Canadian North, as well as from smaller communities throughout eastern Nunavut.

Other information

On June 1, 1996, Virgin Atlantic flight 7 from London to Los Angeles made an emergency landing at Iqaluit after a passenger had a heart attack. The landing was executed safely - the first Boeing 747 ever to attempt to land at Iqaluit - but one of the 747's engines hit a fuel pump on the tarmac as it was taxiing, causing serious damage to the aircraft and a potentially dangerous fuel spill. The 397 stranded passengers were evacuated on two Virgin Atlantic charter jets after spending 16 hours in a local curling rink, and taken to New York City to catch connecting flights to Los Angeles. The original aircraft had its engines repaired and left four days after the accident.

There is a persistent but false rumour that Iqaluit Airport is one of the emergency landing sites for NASA's Space Shuttle, due to the length of its runway and its geographic location.

The Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, conducted cold weather testing from Iqaluit Airport during February 2006 - its first North American visit. They were hoping to experience -25 °C (-13 °F) weather to determine the effects on cabin temperatures and engine performance. Nunavut authorities hope that the importance of this test will put Iqaluit on the map as a centre for cold-weather testing. [(CBC)]

In December of 2005 the Government of Nunavut announced that they would spend $40 million to repair the runway, build a new emergency services facility and a new terminal.^{[#endnote_GNU]}

References

Canada Flight Supplement. Effective 0901Z 8 June 2006 to 0901Z 3 August 2006.

↑ [Nunatsiaq News]

External links

[News Report about Virgin Atlantic 747]
[http://www.copanational.org/PlacesToFly/airport_view.php?pr_id=13&ap_id=189 COPA - Places to fly

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