Z23L - Kourou Arkenne (details, google). A 9,560 ft paved runway in the middle of nowhere, smack center Sahara desert, with the Libya/Niger border cutting the runway in half. (Only airport where an RTO would add a stamp to your passport, except ...) No city, no village, no terminal building, not even a road! Just... sand... Anybody have an idea what Z23L is all about? Sand ETOPS safety strip, perhaps? Cheers, - jahman. EDIT: Corrected Niger for Nigeria.

What a strange air strip. It's paved too - perhaps it's (was) to deliver relief aid, but usually they air-drop supplies like that.

Emergency landing for the Space Shuttle? (though probably not since Qaddafi stopped being our friend). It's Niger/Libya, not Nigeria..

Too short for the shuttle, I would think. Thanks for the heads-up on Niger vs. Nigeria. Cheers, - jahman.

I would say it is for landing in military supplies into the area. Just because it is the desert with no roads doesn't mean it is not a supply route. Trucks drive over the Sahara Desert all the time (and camels). It may be a military runway shared between Nigeria and Libya, you got to get all that old Soviet Army Surplus into the area somehow. The airport is also registered to Nigeria and not Libya but I bet both countries use it.

I would say it is for landing in military supplies into the area. Just because it is the desert with no roads doesn't mean it is not a supply route. Trucks drive over the Sahara Desert all the time (and camels).

There is a road ~3 miles to the east of the airport. I don't see any other settlements near by. If FSX's 2006 era nav data can be trusted, the nearest airport is Al Wigh, 90 miles to the north. Al Wigh seems to exist to support the "Oasis Agriculture Project". I wanted to check if it was an ETOPS divert, so I decided to check Virgin's chart database. They fly from London to South Africa, and thus would have charts for the airport if it was a valid divert field. They don't. Based on that, I'd have to assume that it's just an abandoned supply field. Something probably existed there at some point that required airlifting supplies in.

Flying military supplies into where? A KAOS bunker under the sand? There is nothing there (or even remotely nearby) that would warrant such a deployment, and any transportation of heavy equipment from the "airport" over sand would be difficult. Unless whatever was transported "in" via the airfield was destined for temporary deployment and was later transported back "out". The Virgin tidbit is revealing: It would be interesting for anyone with Virgin Connections to contact the planning department and ask why Kourou Arkenne was excluded, as the strip seems in good condition in the satellite pictures (No vegetation to overrun the pavement, no rain/rivers/fflash floods to erode the runway, no animals to dig holes in the ground, no neighborhhod association to convert the runway into a drag-racing strip). The mystery deepens... Cheers, - jahman.

Flying military supplies into where?

Either Nigeria or Libya. A lot of former Russian equipment made its way into Africa...I couldn't see this for humanitarian aid as their isn't really a population their to give aid to. I was more thinking a supply line to ship in everything from AK47's and much more to distribute to either of those two countries. You never know with either of those two countries the reasons why they would build a runway in the middle of the desert. I could be wrong as I am just speculating....I am just thinking it was part of the arms trade from the collapse of the former Soviet Union.... Cheers

Er, that is Niger, not Nigeria. Two entirely different countries... Niger* shares most of its southern border with Nigeria, its eastern border with Mali, its northeastern border with Algeria, its northern border with Libia, and its eastern border with Chad. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niger_sm03.png

The Virgin tidbit is revealing: It would be interesting for anyone with Virgin Connections to contact the planning department and ask why Kourou Arkenne was excluded, as the strip seems in good condition in the satellite pictures (No vegetation to overrun the pavement, no rain/rivers/fflash floods to erode the runway, no animals to dig holes in the ground, no neighborhhod association to convert the runway into a drag-racing strip).

Except that flights from the UK to Cape Town & Joburg generally pass several hundred miles west of here, over central and southern Algeria then into eastern Mali / western Niger, and did so even before Libyan airspace became less than welcoming recently. I'd guess that diversion fields are more likely to be DAAT Tamanrasset (Algeria) or DRRN Niamey (Niger), both of which are more or less directly en route and have the bonus (for a stricken jetliner) of not being in the middle of nowhere with seemingly no facilities whatsoever. I'm as stumped as everyone else. What's even more curious is that Niger and Libya haven't always been on friendly terms - the former's ties with France and Israel probably don't help - and you really can't see how they would agree to share a runway straddling the border. All I have is a dim recollection that Libya once claimed territory on the Niger side of the border and may have built this white elephant to back up that claim.

...All I have is a dim recollection that Libya once claimed territory on the Niger side of the border and may have built this white elephant to back up that claim.

That's an interesting theory, but such a territorial extension could end up being very expensive for Libya for the amount of territory acquired, as the frontier line could be gerrymandered by Niger to account for the protruding runway. Maybe the runway is all that remains from a project to bring international tourism to the Mines of King Solomon? Cheers, - jahman.

What an interesting find. That road east of the airport ends about 8Nm se of the airstrip and there are two areas with a handful of buildings. That road also looks really really straight and heads up into Libya. What's also interesting is that the ICAO codes for airports in Niger all start with DR. China ICAO's start with Z. Is it a Chinese airport set up by the Chinese to fly supplies into Libya?

Seasonal waterhole where rich hunting expeditions start? This one stumps me but I doubt the strip would be too far from at least a seasonal water source (which can be seen to the east).

Followed the paved road north on Google Earth and came across Al Wigh (HL57) airport about 80NM north of Kourou Arkenne . From Google searches it appears that Al Wigh is a military airfield and outpost (there is a small base just north of Al Wigh and some irrigated orchards north of that base). Suggest to me that Kourou Arkenne might be military for the purpose of dropping in troops quickly incase somebody tries to cross the border when they shouldn't. Edit: The town near Al Wigh is called Tajarhi. The nearest town in Niger to Kourou Arkenne is called Madama and described as an army outpost on Wikipedia.

I love a mystery like this…if you follow most remote roads in the Sahara the shifting sands bury them. If you search Google maps for pictures there are several along the extended road. One is of abandoned road equipment. Another, not far off the main road, is of ruins that mention a caravan route in the caption. And show an oasis. I suspect the airport could be built along a very old desert trade route. That would put the airport where the trade route crosses the border. It seems to me like a plausible location for reasons of national and personal security. The reference above to China is kind of funny, because one of the geotagged pictures (to the south) is actually from China. Some sort of mistake obviously....or an inside joke? :)http://www.panoramio.../photo/25207914