MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mount Pleasant Airport twentieth anniversary.

This week twenty years ago saw the opening of Mount Pleasant Airport with its 2,950 metres runway in the Falkland Islands.

An operation involving £ 215 million which was announced in the House of Commons on June 27, 1983 by then Defence Minister Michael Heseltine and since its inauguration has become the vital link of the Islands with the outside world, offering security and proof of Britain's huge commitment in the aftermath of 1982.

The decision to build a civil and military airport at March Ridge to international standards instead of improving Stanley's airport was because even allowing for the cost of a road between MPA and Stanley it would be less expensive and would not interfere with the intense air traffic following the 1982 South Atlantic conflict.

Details of the new British Government Defence budget released on July 6, 1983 announced an allowance of £624m for the defense of the Falklands and Territories. This was in addition to the price of the new airport and represented 4% of Britain's projected total Defence budget.

Penguin News reported in March 1984 that work was progressing well and there was confidence that a basic airstrip would be operational by April 1985.

"Many Falkland Islanders have been pleasantly surprised at the consortium's progress. Memories of construction companies active in the Falklands over the last ten years or so have rather tainted respect for the construction business as a whole, but so far there have been no excuses or budget excesses at Mount Pleasant."

In November 1984, Penguin Newsin the form of reporter Rob McBride travelled to Mount Pleasant to see how work was progressing. He wrote that the Entertainments Manager at the site was pleased to inform him that the 42nd sport had just been added to the list of activities available in the massive recreation complex: "The fact that a massive entertainments centre existed at all on this equally massive construction site only 46 weeks after bulldozers dug into the strips of earth that would eventually support the airstrips is almost unbelievable.

The same feeling of incredulity must have been experienced by PSA's Regional Director, Maurice Chammings when he first looked out at the proposed site from the window of a shepherd's hut in August 1982...the land he saw then and the land on which I was standing in the Sports Centre was then little more than a bog." Mr Chammings is reported to have been pleased with the progress considering the only materials available to them locally were stone and water - everything else had to be shipped from the UK. By this stage of the operation a quarter of a million tons of supplies had been hauled across the decks of the Merchant Providence who was berthed at East Cove and had become a ?jetty head'.

In December 1983 Cable and Wireless opened the Earth Station in Stanley and on completion of the site offices at Mount Pleasant the system was utilised using a UHV radio signal link beamed from a disc aerial at the offices, received by a special disc aerial erected in Stanley by LMA and then automatically beamed by the earth station via Intelsat to the UK. This provided computer links, telefax and telephones not only for business purposes but also enabled the work force to dial direct from public call boxes.

A shift system kept LMA workers busy around the clock and the article referred to the labourers as ?jet-age' prospectors who had come to look for gold in the dirt of the airport site. "An ordinary laborer can expect to take home a tax-free £10,000 in his pay packet at the end of a year with a £155 bonus on top of that." The workers also got a month's paid midterm leave in the UK. In turn, LMA expected every man to "do his duty" and had no hesitation in removing "misfits" who could disrupt their "well oiled machine." LMA's Wyn Kendrick said it was an exciting concept to build something as big as an airport in a place like this: "To carve an international airport out of virgin turf 8,000 miles from base is a huge achievement".

On May 12, HRH Prince Andrew who was already in the Islands as a Royal Naval Officer, performed the opening ceremony, unveiling a commemorative plaque in the main hangar and received a relief map of the Islands crafted in silver which was presented by Oliver Whitehead, Chairman of the Joint Venture.

A flight on May 12 carried dignitaries such as Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, Housing and Construction Minister, Ian Gow, Foreign Office Parliamentary under Secretary of State, Tim Renton, Lord Shackleton, Lord Buxton, representatives of the main parties in the House of Commons and from the construction companies. Sir Rex Hunt, Falkland Islands Civil Commissioner and Commander of the British Forces Peter de la Billiere also took part.

A ?proving' flight was made two weeks prior to the official opening which had prompted spontaneous celebrations but the official opening was a more formal affair. In his speech HRH Prince Andrew said the story of the construction of Phase 1, the runway and hangar was an example of "imaginative and meticulous planning with the heroic efforts of dedication of a British work force." He said the achievements and success was an example of "British ability and British engineering."

A cake measuring 10 feet by 20 inches depicting the airport's hangar and runway made in Paisley, was cut into 2,000 portions and distributed to Islanders. Many of the Falklands population travelled from near and far to witness the opening of the airport which had been beyond their wildest dreams. For those who travelled from West Falkland who rarely visited the East, it was phenomenal to see a runway and the largest building in the Falklands - not to mention what could only be described as another town sitting on a site which previously had hosted nothing more than an a few sheep, cows and horses - and a road all the way from Stanley to the airport.

Some facts and figures of the construction of Mount Pleasant Airport:

Excavation: 2 million cubic metres; Rock extracted: ½ million cubic metres; Crushed tillite: 1.2 million tonnes; Crushed Quartzite: ½ million tonnes; Wiring (for airfield lights) 180 km; Power station provision: 7½ MW, with 3 MW stand by; Main runway length: 2590 metres; Pieces of construction plant: 1050; Workforce: 2200; Concrete: 197,000 cubic metres; Precast concrete kerb: 28,000 metres; Structural steel: 1550 tonnes; Cladding: 138,700 square metre; Lowest average temperature: 5 deg C; Mean annual wind speed: 17 knots; Hours of transport via the Hercules airbridge: 500,000; Number of drawings: 28,000.

What the papers said...:

"The Falklands airport emerges from rock and peat bog" The Times - May 11; "More than half the population of the Falklands turned out to witness the official opening", The Guardian - May 13; "The opening heralds a new phase in linking the Falklands with the outside world", "The Daily Telegraph - May 10; Falklands' airport may put Islands on the business map", Financial Times - May 10.

Source: Penguin News.