Vozzhayevka (air base)


Vozzhayevka is an air base in Amur Oblast, Russia located about 100 km southeast of Blagoveshchensk. It is a medium-sized air base located near an SS-11 missile field at Svobodnyy. During the 1980s it was one of 17 airfields hosting the Soviet Union's tactical reconnaissance aircraft regiments.
Units stationed at Vozzhayevka include:
In July 1948 the 10th Air Army was transferred from Sakhalin Island to Vozzhayevka. One of the first U-2 flights over the region in 1958 revealed five Tupolev Tu-4 Bull bombers.
In the late 1960s, a runway extension and 30 new hardstands were added, and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 Fresco and Yakovlev Yak-25 Mandrake were being operated at the airfield. An October 1972 reconnaissance satellite analysis showed six Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 Fresco, three Yakovlev Yak-28 Brewer, three Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15UTI trainers, with small numbers of older fighters and transports.
By 1980, the airfield was operating Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer-A aircraft By 1984 the Soviet Union had begun deploying advanced MiG-25R Foxbat aircraft to the airfield, and a normal complement at the airfield then consisted of 5 to 16 MiG-25R and 7 to 11 MiG-21R reconnaissance aircraft.
An Il-76MD destined for Vozzhayevka crash-landed at Astrakhan on June 20, 2000.
Satellite imagery from 2010 onward showed the base to abandoned, with the remains of several Su-24 Fencer aircraft strewn about the storage areas.