Royalty, iconic aircraft, infamous crashes – Kolkata airport brings alive a century of memories

Kolkata: From the royal presence of Queen Elizabeth-II, foreign dignitaries such as Cuban President Fidel Castro, iconic aircraft like the Concorde to infamous crashes, the Kolkata airport, which is celebrating 100 years of flight operations, has seen it all.

Besides the Queen of England, Egyptian president Abdel Nasser, disability rights advocate Helen Keller and former Bangladesh president Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman were among the major foreign dignitaries who landed at the airport, one of the oldest in the country, at different points in time.

The airport has also been witness to some iconic aircraft – Concorde, the world’s first supersonic commercial jet, and the Beluga XL, the largest cargo plane man has flown – making touch-down and lift-off from its runway in 1994 and 2024, respectively.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is gearing up for the centenary celebrations of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (NSCBI), marking a century of aviation history.

On December 8, the AAI announced this milestone, sharing the excitement of a historic journey that began in 1924 at the airport, previously known as the Dum Dum Airport.

From its humble beginnings as a strategic stopover to becoming a major global hub, Kolkata airport’s centenary celebrations promise to be grand, with events lined up to honour its legacy.

Through these 100 years, the airport has cradled historic events while passing through its own development and modernisation.

The airport, though, has also witnessed its share of mishaps. According to records available with officials, a Hermes aircraft was on a non-scheduled passenger flight from Blackbushe Airport in England to Singapore with stops at Karachi, Delhi and Calcutta (now Kolkata).

While making a radar-assisted approach to runway 01R at Dum Dum Airport, Calcutta, it collided with a Dakota aircraft which was lined up on 01L, a parallel runway.

The HP 81 Hermes aircraft had landed on the wrong runway causing the accident. A photograph of one of the two planes is among the collections of the AAI.

Incidentally, this wasn’t the only example of an aircraft landing on the wrong runway.

In December 2008, more than 10 AAI employees and about 100 passengers of a private airline flight from Bagdogra to Kolkata escaped a major accident, after the aircraft landed on the closed main runway at Kolkata airport.

In yet another disaster near the airport, six people perished after a four-engine Boeing 707 aircraft of Pan Am crashed in June 1968. Some 57 people were rescued from the wreckage.

As per records available in public domain, Amelia Earhart had made a stopover at the then aerodrome at Dum Dum in June 1937 during her world tour. She made the stop in Kolkata from Karachi in her quest to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.

Earhart's plane subsequently disappeared over the Pacific Ocean and her body was never found.

Fidel Castro visited Dum Dum Airport in September, 1973. So did Helen Keller in March, 1955 and Mujibur Rahaman in February, 1972.

A historic snapshot taken at the airport brought then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Egyptian president Abdel Nasser in a single frame after the Bandung Conference in 1955.

The Bandung Conference and its final resolution laid the foundation for the nonaligned movement during the Cold War. Leaders of developing countries banded together to avoid being forced to take sides in the Cold War contest.

Nobel laureate for Chemistry Sir Robert Robinson, who visited the city in 1950, was received at the Dum Dum Airport by Satyen Bose and Megnad Saha. The towering scientists were duly photographed, which remain at the airport archive.

The archive also features another priceless photograph of Netaji Subha Chandra Bose and his family members in front of a hangar at the Dum Dum Airport.

Another photograph of former Bengal chief minister Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy captures the moment when he introduced his ministers to the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, at the airport.

The airport also documents Dr Roy and Padmaja Naidu, Governor of West Bengal with Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Edinburgh captured in one frame in 1961, as well as the occasion of Indira Gandhi visiting the newly inaugurated terminal in 1970.

During the centenary celebrations of handling flights by the airport, an exhibition of the airport's history, featuring old photos, documents and stories of its development, would be showcased in the terminal building throughout the year for passengers to gaze, officials said.

The celebrations of 100 years of services at the airport will be inaugurated by Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu Kinjarapu on December 21 and it will continue till March 29, 2025.

The Kolkata airport has also pioneered Indian aviation by hosting the Bengal Flying Club (1929), becoming one of the first jet service hubs (1964) and opening its first dedicated airline cargo terminal in 1975.

It was renamed as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in 1995 and its new integrated terminal, which was inaugurated in 2013, blends heritage with innovation, cementing its status as the gateway to East and Northeast India.