Indian Air Force Chief ACM AP Singh made the inaugural landing of a C-130J aircraft at Nyoma airbase in Ladakh, located 30 km from the LAC. The high-altitude airfield, now fully operational, boosts India’s strategic air capability near China.
New Delhi: Enhancing its operational capability along the line of actual control (LAC) with China, Indian Air Force chief ACM AP Singh on Wednesday made inaugural landing by transport aircraft C-130J at strategic Nyoma airbase, marking it to be fully capable of conducting operations of fighter jets, helicopters and transport planes.
Nyoma, which is about 30-km away from the LAC with China and perched at an altitude of about 13,700 feet, and lies close to the southern bank of the Pangong Tso, had a mud-paved landing ground.
The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) made it a proper runway last year and completed other infrastructure at the airbase in October this year.
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Nyoma is the fourth IAF base in Ladakh, the highest airfield in the country and the fifth highest in the world now.
Due to its elevation and proximity to the LAC, this strategic airfield would allow rapid deployment and mobilization of troops and military equipment in the region amid any exigency situation.
Constructed in less than three years, the airfield is designed to house a number of military unmanned, rotary-wing, fixed-wing aircraft, including heavier transport planes, like C-17 Globemaster III, and fighter jets, like the Sukhoi-30MKI.
Apart from Nyoma, the IAF has airfields at Leh, Thoise and Kargil, as well as Advanced Landing Grounds at Daulet Beg-Oldie and Fukche in Ladakh.
However, the Leh and Thoise airfields are located in interior areas.
After the 1962 India-China war, the Nyoma airstrip was not in use for decades before it got reactivated in 2009 when Indian Air Force’s transport aircraft AN-32 landed for the first time.
During the 2020 India-China border standoff row, the IAF operated its transport aircraft such as C-130Js and AN-32s and helicopters like Apache and Chinook from Nyoma in support of the military’s forward deployments.
