Sania Ramel Airport
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Sania Ramel Airport مطار تطوان سانية الرمل Aéroport Tétouan – Sania R'mel |
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| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||
| Operator | ONDA | ||||||||||
| Serves | Tétouan, Morocco | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 10 ft / 3 m | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 35°35′40″N 005°19′12″W / 35.59444°N 5.32000°W | ||||||||||
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 TTU
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| Statistics (2008) | |||||||||||
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Sources: ONDA,DAFIF
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| Aircraft movements | 1,147 |
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| Passengers | 15,039 |
Sania Ramel Airport (Arabic: مطار تطوان سانية الرمل, French: Aéroport Tétouan – Sania R'mel) (IATA: TTU, ICAO: GMTN) is an airport serving Tétouan, a city in the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region in Morocco. It is also the closest airport to the Spanish city of Ceuta (which only has a heliport). The airport served over 15,000 passengers in the year 2008.
Sania Ramel was the first military airfield built in the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco. It was located near the main Spanish Army camps in Tetouan and started operations in October–November 1913. Despite the small size of the facilities (700 x 350 meters) it became a key element in the Spanish military effort in the West front of the Rif War, even if it was prone to flooding in winter.
On 1 July 1927 civilian operations started in the airfield, which became a stopover in the postal flight route between Larache and Seville for some months that year. After the stop in Tetouan was cancelled, it is not known if more civilian flights continued to use the facilities.
It also played a relevant role in the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. In the early morning of 18 July 1936, the commander of the military air base, Ricardo de la Puente (Francisco Franco's cousin), refused to join the uprising against the government of the Republic. Nevertheless, lacking reinforcements from Madrid, he had to surrender to the rebels after a few hours of combat (he would be subsequently executed in August by the new Nationalist authorities in the Mount Hacho Fortress in Ceuta; Franco did nothing to prevent it). Before surrendering the base, De la Puente managed to render useless all the Breguet bombers parked there. On the following day, 19 July, the de Havilland Dragon Rapide flying Francisco Franco from the Canary Islands landed in Sania Ramel, where the senior rebel officers welcomed him and Franco assumed command of the Spanish Army in Morocco. They held an improvised conference around the plane.
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Wikipedia