Kutusongo, CD 🇨🇩 Closed Airport
CD-0066
-
1722 ft
CD-SA
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Loading...GPS Code: Not available
Local Code: Not available
Location: -2.68003° N, 23.283119° E
Continent: AF
Type: Closed Airport
Keywords: FZVF
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The exact date of closure is not officially documented. However, analysis of historical satellite imagery indicates a significant decline in maintenance and usability after 2016. The airstrip, which was clearly defined and maintained up to 2016, appears progressively more overgrown in subsequent years, suggesting it was abandoned and fell into disuse sometime between 2016 and 2020.
No official reason for the closure has been published. Given its nature as a simple, remote bush airstrip, the most likely reason is abandonment due to economic or logistical factors. Such airstrips are often built and maintained to support a specific purpose, such as a missionary station, an NGO operation, a mining camp, or a local community project. The closure was likely a result of the cessation of the activity it supported, making it no longer financially or logistically viable to maintain the runway.
The site is currently abandoned and disused. Satellite imagery shows the former runway is heavily overgrown with grass and shrubs, rendering it unusable for any aviation activity. There are no buildings, hangars, or other infrastructure on the site, which appears to be slowly reverting to natural bushland. The land is not being used for any other discernible purpose.
Kutusongo Airport was a small, local bush airstrip. Its significance was not national or regional, but vital to the immediate Kutusongo area, which is extremely remote and has limited ground transportation infrastructure. When active, it would have handled small, Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) capable aircraft, such as the Cessna Caravan, Pilatus PC-6 Porter, or Britten-Norman Islander. These operations were crucial for transporting personnel, medical supplies, food, and essential equipment. The airport served as a critical lifeline connecting the local community or operation to larger towns and the outside world.
There are no known or published plans to reopen Kutusongo Airport. Reopening the airstrip would require significant effort to clear the vegetation and regrade the runway surface. Such an effort would only be undertaken if a new economic or humanitarian need arose in the area, such as the establishment of a new mining operation, a large-scale aid project, or a missionary group. As of now, the prospects for reopening are considered non-existent.
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