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Clarification: China has yet to Build an Underground Facility at Gonggar

Posted in military

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New infrastructure upgrades were completed at Lhasa-Gonggar earlier this year, satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows. Workers at the civil-military airfield widened a road and built an additional parking apron near the base of the mountain.

Earlier this month, India’s Hindustan Times reported that China had built an underground facility to house fighter aircraft at the airport. Quoting three unnamed officials, the report said that an underground hangar was large enough to hold up to 36 aircraft.

That assertion however is inaccurate. Imagery shows the new parking apron with markings indicative of parking positions for up to thirty-six aircraft, but does not show activity to tunnel into the mountain to create a hardened hangar. To date aircraft have not relocated to the apron nor have any additional aircraft deployed to the airbase as a result.

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