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Airlines maybe moaning about the rising costs of maintenance, but spare a thought for the poor carriers hit by last year’s Battle of Tripoli Airport. The Loadstar’s intrepid reporter in Libya has sent back these images, revealing the scale of the damage, with Afriqiyah Airlines and Libyan Airlines badly affected. The pictures show engineers trying to do temporary repairs on bullet holes in fuselages, before the aircraft are flown on to Europe for full-scale repairs. The airport itself is not looking in great shape either. What’s more, 11 aircraft are reportedly missing completely.
A Libyan Airlines Airbus A320, its tail blown to pieces
The ATC tower
Many of Libya’s unused planes were also destroyed
An ex-aircraft
Damage awaiting temporary repairs
Every green square indicates a bullet hole covered with a temporary repair
An engineer makes a temporary fix over a hole made by flying shrapnel
Fixing bullet holes on an Afriqiyah Airbus A319
From the frontline
Shell casings litter the carcass of a burnt-out plane
Terminal clearance
Former terminal building – clearance has started
Abandoned luggage
And more…
Passport control
Comment on this article
Mark Mohr
June 19, 2015 at 12:35 pmWow…incredible pictures. We all knew it was bad, but until one sees pictures of the aftermath you can’t really understand how bad it all really was.