Скачать или смотреть Object 505 - abandoned underground airport (HR) / opuštěné podzemní letiště

Željava Air Base was the largest underground airport and military air base in the former Yugoslavia, and one of the largest in Europe. Construction of the Željava Air Base (code-named "Objekat 505") was inspired by the Swedish F 9 Säve, began in 1948 and was completed in 1968. During those two decades, SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) spent approximately $6 billion on its construction, three times the combined current annual military budgets of Serbia and Croatia. It was one of the largest and most expensive military construction projects in Europe.

The role of the facility was to establish, integrate, and coordinate a nationwide early warning radar network in SFRJ akin to NORAD. The complex was designed and built to sustain a direct hit from a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb, equivalent to the one dropped on Nagasaki.

The underground facility was lined with semicircular concrete shields, arranged every ten meters, to cushion the impact of incoming munitions. The complex included an underground water source, power generators, crew quarters, and other strategic military facilities. Object 505 was built for 100 fighter aircrafts -
MiG-21bis and MiG-21R. It also housed a mess hall that could feed 1,000 people simultaneously, along with enough food, fuel, and arms to last 30 days without resupply. Fuel was supplied by a 20-kilometer underground pipe network that ran from a military warehouse on Pokoj Hill near Bihać.

The airbase was used intensively in 1991, during the Yugoslav Wars. During its withdrawal, the Yugoslav People's Army destroyed the runway by filling pre-built spaces (explicitly designed for the purpose) with explosives and detonating them. To prevent any possible further use of the complex by opposing forces, the Military of Serbian Krajina completed the destruction in 1992 by setting off an additional 56 tons of explosives there. The ensuing explosion was so powerful that it shook the nearby city of Bihać. Villagers claimed that smoke continued to rise from the tunnels for six months after the explosion.

For more information visit www.zeljava-lybi.com