L’Aquila, Earthquake, Capoluogo d’Abruzzo, Terremoto, Perdonanza, Porta Santa, Celestino V, Federico II, Giubileo, G8 L’Aquila 2009

The Heads of State and Government Leaders arriving in L’Aquila for the G8 Summit will be landing at Parchi di Preturo Airport, six kilometres from the centre of the Abruzzo regional capital.  The airport at Parchi was a simple landing strip for heliport aircraft until only a few weeks ago, but now it is rapidly turning into a fully-fledged airport with all the necessary technical and safety features.

The plan to expand the airport was spawned mainly by all of the intense activity in the area in the wake of the earthquake back in April.  In the hours immediately following the earthquake, the small airport became one of the most improtant nerve centres for the entire rescue operation.  The helicopters that transferred both the 150 patients evacuated from L’Aquila’s San Salvatore Hospital and those who had been seriously injured in the earthquake, took off from Preturo.  But the rescue activities, which were fortunately all completed without a hitch, did point up certain structural shortcomings in the airport:  the absence of any real parking areas, runways for taxiing aircraft, holding facilities and even a control tower worthy of the name.  This led to the devising of a plan to update the airport and to bring it into line with requirements.

A plan did actually exist to update both the airport itself and the road system around it even before the earthquake.  The L’Aquila municipal authorities, who were planning to build a Civil Protection structure inside the airport, had earmarked funds for the purpose and had begun to expropriate the property in the area needed to widen the airport approach road.But it was the decision to shift the venue for the G8 Summit from La Maddalena to L’Aquila that really helped to speed up the work, in order to ensure that the Heads of State and Government Leaders could land at Preturo Airport.

The work currently being undertaken ranges from work on the airport itself and on its infrastructures, to the neighbouring road system.  Inside the airport, the aircraft parking and hangar facility has been enlarged to 16,000 square metres, while the taxiing runway has been more than doubled in length, from 7 to 16 metres.  Instrument landing system technology is being installed, a new control tower is being built, and the take-off and landing runway is to be properly lit.  At the same time, work is going ahead also on the road system linking the airport to the outside world.

This will allow such medium-sized aircraft as the Falcon, the C27J, the Canadair (used for fighting forest fires) and even the Atr 42, which can carry up to 40 passengers and which is very popular with numerous airlines, to land at the airport.

The work is to benefit from a contribution in funds worth 900,000 euro earmarked by the ENAC (Italian National Civil Aviation Board), together with a concrete contribution from the Italian Air Force Engineers and from the ENAV (Italian National Air Traffic Control Board).

The newly revamped Parchi di Preturo Airport is due to be inaugurated on 2 July, thus endowing the Abruzzo region with an important airport in the heart of the Apennines, a vital and central hub for economic and tourist activity in the region.

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