Intriguing Mystery In Tibet (Part One) The Airport In The Wilderness

By Anton Lang ~

Why would China construct a major airport in one of the most inaccessible places on Earth, right on the bank of a River prone to probably the greatest potential for major flooding on Earth?

LinZhi Airport in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Image Credit – Koh Hoe Jyh

If those two things I mentioned in the opening paragraph were not enough of a problem, the airport is shrouded by fog and cloud for most of the year, and is only open for around 120 days each year for visual approaches. On top of that, being where it is, in this region, it has one of the most difficult approaches for any major airport on Earth with pilots having to fly down a long ravine with huge slopes on both sides, meaning that the airport is restricted only to the most experienced pilots with special instrument approach qualifications to fly in such a demanding place. The airport is capable of taking aircraft up to the size of the stretched Boeing 757-200. The airport cost The Chinese just under 800 Million Yuan (almost $US100 Million) to construct.

So, with all these things going against it, why would they even bother?

That airport is The LinZhi Airport near the town of Mainling in the Nyingchi Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region. It is situated on the banks of the Yarlung Tsangpo River near the area referred to as the Great Bend, where this mighty River turns to the North in a huge loop, and then turns South where it then goes on to enter India to become the Brahmaputra River. That huge loop is around 400 Kilometres long and the River descends along that length an incredible 2100 metres, ideal for construction of hydro electric power stations.

Besides the construction of this airport, modern highways in this area have also been constructed, linking the area directly into China, and also to Lhasa, the Capital of Tibet. One of those highways extends along the River in both directions from the airport. A rail link has also been constructed, also into China, and also on to Lhasa. In this area, there have also been a number of small towns popping up along those highways, and one of those existing towns, Nyingchi has become in fact, quite a large city. There has been a major build up in this area.

Why?

It has everything to do with infrastructure, and some may say that could also be the case for tourism, as this part of Tibet, previously wilderness, has now become a popular tourist destination. However, as you look around this area, it seems that there is a lot of things that might not readily be associated with just tourism.

China releases five year plans for their Country, and while they are industrialising at a rapid pace, infrastructure needs to be in place prior to large engineering projects going ahead. The pace of that infrastructure construction started a number of years back now, and has been rapidly building up. This area of Tibet is considered the last great River system for Hydro electric power development, and being so inaccessible, then they cannot just start those plans for the Hydro without a lot of infrastructure being in place, hence the airport, the highways and the rail link. While all of that has led to an increase in tourism in this area, all of this construction serves other purposes as well.

In the earlier Post (at this link) I canvassed an opinion as to why China is so interested in staying in Tibet, and that the reason could be Hydro Electric Power on the many Rivers that rise in the Himalayas and flow through Tibet, in what is called the Tibet Autonomous Region. China has proposals for a large number of Hydro schemes in Tibet. Information on those new proposals is difficult to come by, and I’ve been searching long and hard for any definitive information, and there is very little of that, other than some comment on other Blog sites, mainly conjecture really. During my in depth searching I came across something that was quite intriguing. This was an airport, a large commercial airport in an area which until recently was basically wilderness.

For those readers who have the Google Earth program, then you can locate this airport for yourselves by typing these words into the Search facility – LinZhi Airport Tibet.

 

I know that most readers do not have the Google Earth Program, and in my searches for the many related things I was looking for here, I did find a link to some satellite Imagery which was basically the same as for Google Earth, so for those of you who do not have that program, I’ll link into that satellite imagery, which is  at this link. If the imagery opens up as a map, instead of the satellite imagery, then press the satellite tab at the top right.

Now, when you arrive here, you’ll see 6 blue markers on a map. Now, without scrolling in, scroll across to the right and the image will move in that direction. Be watchful and you will see the town of Mainling appear. Once you have centred Mainling in the middle of your screen, then scroll in a little. Move slowly along the river to the right until the airport comes into view, and if it doesn’t, then scroll in a little further.

So, if the main intent of this series of Posts is about the plans for China Hydroelectric plants, why have I bothered about mentioning an airport, if my major interest is in electrical power generation of all types. That airport is integral to those hydro plans for this area.

I started searching for information about two huge Hydro plans for this area, and it was odd to me that these Hydro plants were both significantly larger than the huge Three Gorges project on the Yangtze River. Because my interest was piqued, I went searching in the Google Earth program to see if this area could support two monster projects like this. During that search, I found this airport, which seemed so out of place. From there I then went searching for information about this airport, and it all relates back to infrastructure being in place prior to these major projects going ahead.

Now that the infrastructure is mainly in place, work on those projects can proceed. A large part of that is the airport itself, and for some idea of the difficulty of flying into this airport, watch this video.

This was produced by a U.S. company Naverus, which has now been acquired by GE Aviation, and is being implemented in the U.S. for airport approach systems. The computer program enables the aircraft to be flown to a navigational program for the approach to this airport in Tibet. The computer actually flies the plane during this approach. For this airport in Tibet, that starts from around 100 Miles out from the airport. The pilots need do nothing at all except monitor the gauges in front of them. The computer flies the plane down the approach, turning the plane at each way point. The computer also lands the plane, initiates the reverse thrust, and the pilots than apply the brakes, and when the aircraft stops the pilots then taxi into the terminal. This is referred to as RNP, Required Navigation Performance. All of that is shown in the video. Because of this, only specially qualified pilots with specific Instrument qualifications are the only ones who can fly into this airport. Now, while the airport only has visual approach conditions for around 120 or so days a year, this RNP program is operational in all weather conditions.

An internal Tibetan Commuter airline flies small commuter aircraft into this airport, usually one flight every day or second day, and only for visual approaches, as they are much smaller aircraft. The ONLY other airline which flies into this airport is Air China, which has FOUR flights a day into this airport, all medium to large passenger aircraft, like Boeing 737’s, the stretched 757-200, and the medium sized Airbus, all fitted out with this new Navigation system.

That’s FOUR flights a day, in virtually all sorts of weather. That could be as much as 700 to 800 passengers or more, and that’s each day.

That can’t just be for tourism alone. There is a city not far from the airport, but surely, that many passengers in and out of the airport  is a lot of people arriving and leaving.

Something I did notice as I moved around in Google Earth was a large number of bigger buildings in not just a few of those smaller towns, but at nearly all of them. I would put that down to large scale work places, mostly engineering in nature, which again told me that this area, and by extrapolation, the airport had a lot more going on than just Tourism. What all this build up did indicate to me was an answer to a question about that airport, and why Air China was flying four flights a day from inside China to this airport in Tibet, and I would say it has nothing to do with tourism, not for anything up to 700 or 800 people a day coming into this area.

That threw up another thought which concerns something which is in place here in Australia. It is referred to as FIFO, which stands for Fly In Fly Out. There is a lot of mining going on here in Australia, and quite a lot of that is in places that are relatively inaccessible, and that mining is carried out around the clock, 24 hours a day. Rather than build a whole new town with homes etc in those areas, the Mining Companies fly the workers in from where they live to an airport close to the mining operation, and the workers work 12 hour shifts for three days a week, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, and then they fly back out to their homes for three days, flying back in to work after that short break. It’s a convenient thing. Mining workers are paid big money here in Australia, and they need something attractive to get people to work in such remote places, and this FIFO scheme means that the workers can have three days at home with their family, where they actually live, rather than having to move into remote areas where this is very little housing and infrastructure to support all that residential living in those remote areas.

When I found that Air China was flying that many people into this area every day, that was one of the first things I thought of, but from looking more closely at that satellite imagery, showing the exponential build up of occupation in that area, then the FIFO option receded.

Just scrolling along the River only raises more questions as to what might be happening in that area, so I searched further afield, and found what appeared to be quite a large City.

Now, go back to where the airport is. As you scroll down the River to the right, you’ll see a large river entering this river from the top of the image. That is the Nyang River. Now, scroll up that river and you’ll find that large city. This city is called Nyingchi. The census taken in 2010 showed that the population of the whole of Nyingchi Prefecture (similar to a State) was around 180,000 people. One of the sites I visited in this search said that the population of just this one city was approaching 250,000. As you scroll in on that city, you can see how large it is, with a number of sports fields, one of them even looking like a fairly large stadium, and a huge build up of buildings of every sort in what is now quite a large city. Around the outskirts of the city, you will also see large engineering work places as well.

Again, all of this leads me to believe that there is in fact something quite big happening on this river, as that sort of infrastructure is a lot more than what might be required for just tourism.

That leads in to this huge Hydro Project for further downstream on this river, the Motuo project, and while nothing (of any concrete nature) is evident from this imaging, what needs to be taken into account here is that prior to anything of this huge scale being started, then all the infrastructure needs to be in place. When I cross referred back to what piqued my interest in the first place,  the original link for the map of those hydro projects and looked again at those lines across that map enlargement at the bottom right, then that also seemed to me as confirmation that this huge Motuo Project is something new for a hydro power plant, one that does not include a mega dam, as everyone seems to think.

Right at the top of the Post I mentioned how the airport is right on the River itself, and how it might be prone to major flooding, mainly from the big snow melts at the end of Winter, as that huge Himalayan area snow melts, and with the immense flow off from those huge glaciers in this area. So, with an airport possibly prone to flooding on this scale, both of these major projects come into play. The one closest to actual construction is Motuo, which is downstream from the airport, and the one under consideration, the even larger Daduqai project is upstream of the airport, away to left as you look at the satellite imagery. Both projects entail Dams, and with those two dams, then the flow of the River where the airport is can be better regulated to ensure that the airport stays open and is not flooded.

This airport is in fact integral to both of these huge hydro projects on this River.

In the next Post on this subject, I will delve into what might be one of the most astonishing feats of engineering of our time, this proposed Motuo Hydro scheme.

 This article may be copied and used at other sites, provided it is quoted in full,  or with the first few paragraphs and a link to the rest of the full article, and has an attribution back to this site and also to the author.

Anton Lang uses the screen name of TonyfromOz, and he writes at this site, PA Pundits International on topics related to electrical power generation, from all sources, concentrating mainly on Renewable Power, and how the two most favoured methods of renewable power generation, Wind Power and all versions of Solar Power, fail comprehensively to deliver levels of power required to replace traditional power generation. His Bio is at this link.

ChinaTibetHydro

Tagged: China Hydro, Hydroelectric Power Generation, Large Scale Hydro Electric Plants, LinZhi Airport, Motuo Hydro Project, Tibet, Tibet Hydro, Yarlung Tsangpo River Tibet

Posted in: China, Hydro Electric Power, Infrastructure Problems, Public Opinion, Tibet