Baucau Airport

Baucau Airport (IATA: BCH, ICAO: WPEC), formerly Cakung Airport, is an unattended airport located 6.5 km (4.0 mi) west of Baucau, East Timor.[1][2][3]

Baucau Airport
Summary
Airport typePublic
Air force base (RAAF)
OperatorGovernment
ServesBaucau, East Timor
Elevation AMSL1,777 ft / 542 m
Coordinates08°29′07″S 126°23′57″E
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
14/32 2,509 8,233 Bitumen
Sources: AIP Timor-Leste[1] and DAFIF[2][3]

Baucau Airport has a much longer runway than Dili's Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport. Prior to 1975 this airport was used for international flights, including those of Trans Australia Airlines from Australia, and as an air force base for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

In September 1975, a group of 44 civilians, including armed supporters of the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), commandeered an RAAF Caribou aircraft, A4-140, on the ground at Baucau Airport. The Caribou had landed at Baucau on a humanitarian mission for the International Committee of the Red Cross. The civilians demanded that the RAAF crew members fly them to Darwin Airport (also RAAF Base Darwin) in Australia, which they did. After the Caribou arrived there, the Australian government detained the civilians for a short period, and then granted refugee visas to all of them. The Guardian later described A4-140 as "the only RAAF plane ever hijacked", and the incident as "one of the more remarkable stories in Australia's military and immigration history".[4]

Following the Indonesian invasion in December 1975, Baucau Airport was taken over by the Indonesian military and closed to civilian traffic.

During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the airport served as a base for aircraft of the Indonesian Air Force, who were stationed for counter-insurgency effort toward the pro-independence guerilla.

Sign posted at outside the parking ramp at Cakung Airport in October 2009

After East Timor's independence, Baucau Airport also used again as air force base by the RAAF.

References
  1. Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) Archived 2008-08-27 at the Wayback Machine from Timor-Leste Civil Aviation Department Archived August 4, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  2. Airport information for WPEC at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.Source: DAFIF.
  3. Airport information for BCH at Great Circle Mapper. Source: DAFIF (effective October 2006).
  4. Henriques-Gomes, Luke (16 January 2021). "'It was life or death': the plane-hijacking refugees Australia embraced". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 January 2021.


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