St Helena opens to the world
CENTURIES OF ISOLATION AT AN END AS AIRLINK AIRCRAFT FLIES IN
The first regular commercial flight landed at St Helena on Saturday, opening the small British island in the South Atlantic to the world after centuries of isolation.
About 100 islanders came to the airport to watch the historic landing of the Embraer 190 jet, which came from Johannesburg.
On the tarmac, about 60 incoming passengers were welcomed by the island’s smiling governor, Lisa Phillips.
“It is connecting us to the world and it is opening us to the world,” said Niall O’Keeffe, in charge of economic development on the island.
St Helena, with just over 4 000 residents and known as “Saints”, is best-known as the rocky outcrop where French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte saw out his final days.
After five years of construction, controversy and embarrassing delays due to high winds, the airport, built at a cost of £285 million (just over R5 billion) by South African construction giant Stocks & Stocks, opened for business.
The volcanic tropical island itself measures just 122km² and is located almost exactly halfway between Africa and South America.
Its isolated location meant it was chosen as a place of exile for those who suffered defeat against Britain, with Napoleon held there from 1815, until his death in 1821.
Several thousand Boer prisoners of war were also detained there at the start of the 20th century.
Until Saturday, St Helena was one of the world’s most inaccessible locations.
It has been only reachable by sea, a five-day voyage from Cape Town aboard a Royal Mail vessel that chugs along at just 28km/h.
Every three weeks, the RMS St Helena has been the islanders’ link to the outside world, bringing a cargo of food, post, visitors and vehicles.
The new flight route, via Windhoek in Namibia, makes the island reachable by air from South Africa in just six hours.
The airport has been a colossal civil engineering challenge.
The island had no suitable flat surface to construct the necessary 1 950m-long airstrip.
Engineers were forced to chip away a mountain peak and fill in a valley to create enough of an even surface.
The runway is located on a breathtaking mountain just 300m from the sea.
Because of high winds, Comair abandoned plans to operate the route with a Boeing 737, paving the way for AirLink’s smaller Embraer 190 jet.
When the RMS St Helena is retired from service next year, the island will become almost completely dependent on its airport.
But with its Napoleonic heritage, rare birds and exotic plant life, hopes are high that the island will become a nirvana for curious travellers. – AFP