What IAF’s Mirage highway landing signifies

The Indian Air Force landed a Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft on the Yamuna Expressway near Mathura today at around 6:40 a.m. It was the first trial to use a national highway as an emergency landing strip. The IAF plans to activate more such strips in the future.

The use of highways as airstrips is not a new phenomenon. It started during the second world war in Germany where the Autobahn was used to land fighter planes. The Reichsautobahn system was constructed during Hitler’s reign in Germany as a measure to reduce unemployment. The use of motorways as landing strips was not just restricted to Germany, though. As part of strategy, across Europe on both sides of the iron curtain during the cold war, parts of highways were marked as landing strips for aircraft. Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden, Finland Switzerland are countries where highway landing strips were built.