5 minute read
London
By Anthony Grant
Airports are places that seem to exist outside of time. And when an airport closes, it can look and feel almost otherworldly, like a zombie. How do big hunks of concrete take such ghostly turns? Maybe there was a war or, more likely, a bigger airport came along, and no one got around to demolish the previous one completely. A brief look around the world shows there are more than a few zombie airports lurking out there. Some of them, like London’s Croydon, still have an air of faded glory about them. Others, like Nicosia International, have had planes waiting to take off since 1974.
Advertisement
1. Nicosia International Airport By Desert Star Staff
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Cancer survivors are speaking out as they await the outcome of several lawsuits concerning radiation and cell phones.
The suits challenge the Federal Communication Commission’s radiation guidelines, the radio-frequency or ‘RF’ levels from cell phones, and safety notices required by the City of Berkeley.
Courtney Kelley, a young mother who has beaten back breast cancer twice, said she used to keep her phone tucked into her bra - but not anymore.
“I use headphones when I talk, or speaker phone,” said Kelley. “I don’t sleep with my cell phone near me. I never put my cell phone in a pocket or in my bra. I’m even uncomfortable with it in my purse next to my body, I try to keep it far away.”
There’s a reason your international flight to Cyprus probably landed at Larnaca International Airport (LCA) on the south coast: because what should be the island’s preeminent airport, Nicosia International, has been stuck in a time warp since Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, bombing the airport out of commission in July that year. The whole site sits inland, a few miles west of the divided Cypriot capital of Nicosia. On the derelict tarmac, a rusting, vintage Hawker Siddeley Trident jet sits abandoned. Like the terminal, the tarmac is now under the control of United Nations peacekeepers. The airport still has a threeletter code, NIC, but you’re not going to fly here soon.
The cellular industry insists its products are safe, although a 2018 study by the National Toxicology Program concluded cellphone radiation causes brain tumors in rats.
Orange County surgeon Dr. John West, who wrote a book on breast cancer called “Prevent, Survive, Thrive,” said he’s seen multiple patients -- with no family history or genetic predisposition -- develop tumors near where they usually kept their phone. 55-year-old Cally Pivano had a fast-growing, softballsized tumor removed from her left leg. Now, it has metastasized to her lungs, back, right leg and her heart. A doctor told her it might have been caused by exposure to radiation.
“And then I had an epiphany,” said Pivano. “My laptop! I put that on my left
2. Hong Kong International Airport (Kai Tak)
No one who ever experienced a landing at Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak Airport, with its lone runway adjacent to Victoria Harbor (and made from reclaimed land), can ever forget it. Especially if it was at night. As my Cathay Pacific plane weaved between skyscrapers and apartment blocks one late night, neon signs flickering below the fog, it felt like I was flying onto a real-life set for Blade Runner. In fact, Kai Tak landings were tricky with an approach low over the city ending abruptly with a runway surrounded by water. As pilots turned onto the final approach, you could see what people were watching leg, almost every day, for hours. And then, when I searched for the owner’s manual for my laptop, there it on TV. Hong Kong’s current international airport on Chek Lap Kok island took over from Kai Tak in 1998, keeping the same HKG code. Now, the old HKG sits mostly abandoned.
3. London Terminal Aerodrome (Croydon Airport)
Croydon was on an excellent stretch one of Europe’s most important airports—and as such home to many famous firsts: the first airport control tower was built here, and so was the first airport hotel. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh flew in on the Spirit of St. Louis following the first transatlantic flight, and Winston Churchill took flying lessons at Croydon years before that. Britain’s first national airline, Imperial Airways, was based here too. Britain’s air traffic needs outgrew Croydon after World War II, and the airfield (originally built to defend London against Zeppelin raids in World War I) closed for good in 1959. But many of the Art Deco terminal structures remain, and there’s a visitor’s center in the old control tower.
4. Berlin Tempelhof Airport
Now decommissioned, Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport (THF) ceased operations in 2008, and the airfield itself is now mainly used as a park. The site has an unusual pedigree, built upon land that, in medieval times, belonged to the Knights was in black and white: ‘Must be kept a minimum of eight inches away from your body.’”
And 49-year-old Paul Templar. It was the Nazis who oversaw the transformation of an earlier airport into something huge: giant semicircle threequarters of a mile long covered by a high curving canopy roof, mostly completed by 1941. Hitler hoped for more Nazi rallies on the tarmac than circumstances would permit. In 1945 the Soviets took over the airport, but it would soon find itself in the American sector, and in 1948 and 1949, Tempelhof became the linchpin of the Berlin Airlift. Much of the monumental Nazi work is intact, with its vast empty halls making the whole place very eerie.
5. Damascus International Airport
Question: If an airport lies in an active war zone and all commercial airlines from all countries but the airports own have suspended flights until further notice, does it really exist? Damascus International in war-torn Syria is undoubtedly off the radar, in more ways than one. Explosions and airstrikes near the airport are frequent occurrences, and most airlines avoid the airspace over Syria. While this is not a decommissioned airport, virtually all international airlines had canceled service to Damascus by the start of 2013. That said, SyrianAir still has a functioning flight
Cancer Survivors Await Outcome of Cell-Phone Warnings Lawsuit
Courtney Kelley has successfully fought breast cancer twice, near where she says she used to carry her cell phone. (Courtney Kelley)
schedule running out of DAM.
Griffiths, a father of two from San Jose, is fighting a brain tumor above the ear where he said he used to squeeze his phone while taking notes on work calls.
