VintageAirRally

This is it! Bluie East 2 Air Force base (or BE-2), abandonned for more then 70 years now and created during WWII to supply the Allies in #Europe. It has a 5000 foot gravel runway - first picture, left of the fjord and on which the Beech 18 landed - on an alluvial shelf at the base of high mountains facing a narrow strait were Eskimo huts used to be. Its local name is Ikateq, in the Angmagssalik area and subject to extreme weather.

It is a eery, strangely beautiful place, but also an environmental eye sore. When the US left, they left everything - busses, trucks, machinery and thousands and thousands of fuel containers meant to supply the airforce, that have been rusting into the ground and spoiling the pristine environment.

After years of fruitless negociations between the US and Denmark on who was to foot the clean up bill, finely a few days ago, the Danish Government pledged $10 million.

#airforce #environment #Denmark #abroadabroad Paula Froelich