Francisco Mendes International Airport


Francisco Mendes International Airport was an airport located on Santiago Island in Cape Verde. It was opened in 1961. It was located about 2 km east of central Praia in the southeastern part of the island of Santiago. After Cape Verdean independence, the airport was named after Francisco Mendes, a Guinea-Bissau independence activist and that country's first Prime Minister.

History

On 28 September 1998, a TACV de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter carrying Carlos Veiga, then Prime Minister of Cape Verde, 18 other passengers and three crew members crash-landed at the airport. There was one fatality and four people were injured.
In late 2005, the airport was deactivated, and replaced by the new Praia International Airport.