Mindiptana, the Indonesian people who got the acronym Mar del Plata

A barn with three doors painted in white and light blue. A gray asphalt ribbon shoveled on wet earth was removed and a dense forest of green trees around. Nothing more. Only with that, an airport of

Indonesia

reached in 1945 to gain the initials

Mar del Plata

-Mar del Plata? No, I do not know this thing, "said Tatang M. Badri
THE NATION. The man lives in Mindiptana, a town of two inhabitants per square kilometer, located in the province of Papua, 3700 km east of Jakarta, capital of Indonesia.

74 years ago, in this inhospitable country, a group of villagers widened their eyes again, smiled for the photo and cut the opening cbadettes of their first and only aerodrome, "Bandar Udara Mindiptana", to which the group of villagers had their eyes. International Air Transport Association (IATA, for its acronym in English) gave it the global identification of "CDM".

Three years later, in 1948, a similar scene was repeated, but in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was the president's first term

Juan Domingo Perón.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Aeronautics noticed that the city was starting to have a significant air activity and then decided to send a group of men to form the "Mar del Plata Military Air Base" ".

On February 15, 1952, Perón signs a decree and creates the detachment of the air force of Mar del Plata. But it was too late to keep the acronyms that corresponded to them. Mindiptana had won them and Marplatenses had no choice but to settle for the "international identification" MDQ ".

"IATA has a three-letter identification code for every airport in the world and, as the letter" p "was busy, they gave us the letter" q ", which corresponds to the following letter in the alphabet, "he explains.
THE NATION the head of the airport of Mar del Plata, Carlos Ferro.

An unusual village

The land of Mindiptana is very flat and a tropical jungle climate prevails in the area. The average annual temperature is 21 degrees and rainfall is significant. For example, the driest month enjoys an average of about 372 millimeters.

In his
The Wikipedia site, Mindiptana Airport, has a description that occupies only one region: "Located in the Andopbit village, its runway length is 1950 by 45 meters" .

They do not have an official website, but
yes one on Facebook where they publish sporadically the frequency of flights, advice for their pbadengers and some other wishes for Christmas or the new year.

According to reports, only one flight per day, operated by the airline Susi Air, would arrive from Merauke, a city that serves as the main entrance to several tourist destinations in the area.

The Susi Air is a Cessna Grand Caravan C208B, built in 2004. It has 12 leather seats, air conditioning and reaches a cruising speed of 300 km / h.

This company is known in this country for recruiting foreign pilots, mainly from European or North American countries, because of insufficient training of local pilots.

How to arrive

If an Argentinean dreams of going on vacation to Mindiptana (?), He must know that it will not be easy for him. You have to make a flight with up to seven stops: Sao Pablo (Brazil), Madrid (Spain), Dubai (Arab Emirates), Soekarno-Hatta (Indonesia), Sultan Hasanuddin, Sentani, Merauke. But it depends on the airline.

From Ezeiza International Airport, in Buenos Aires, and count the waiting time in the terminals, the commute to "CDM" lasts for at least 55 hours and the total cost is & iza 39 39 39 et et et et et et et et et et et et et et et et et et et et approximately $ 289,961.

Luck