Updated on March 30 at 9:25 p.m. KST with newer imagery showing extended demolition across the entire airfield complex.

North Korea has started to demolish a modern airfield built just eight years ago on an exclusive patch of riverfront property in Pyongyang, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery.

The airfield likely services military and private aircraft and would be the eighth North Korean airfield known to be erased from the map in the last four years, a sign of poor long-term planning or shifting government priorities. 

NK Pro was first to report on a sprawling construction worker camp being set up near the Kumsusan area airfield last month, suggesting major construction is also planned at the site once demolition work finishes. 

Planet Labs satellite imagery shows the leveling of ten light aircraft shelters and a structure housing two helicopter shelters between March 27 and 28. Two days later, almost all buildings had been dismantled.

Slide to compare images taken on March 27 and 28 showing the likely start to at least partial demolition of the facilities | Images: Planet Labs, edited by NK Pro (Please refresh page if images do not load)

Almost all structures appear gone in the image on the right taken on March 30 | Images: Planet Labs, edited by NK Pro

It’s unclear if the razing of the site is to make way for an entirely new project or if it will remain a military or aviation base.

The airfield is located along the Taedong River near the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the bodies of the former leaders lie in state, and next to multiple state guesthouses including the Kumsusan Guesthouse and Paekhwawon Guesthouse.  

The last time a worker camp appeared in the same spot was in early 2019, when DPRK leader Kim Jong Un appeared to order the rapid construction of the extravagant Kumsusan Guesthouse for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s stay that summer. 

The official name and purpose of the airfield complex have remained unknown in the open source since it was built in spring 2015, but the military or VIPs may use it for travel to and from the capital. The area appears highly secure, with guard posts every hundred meters or so along an outer perimeter fence.

The airfield can accommodate at least 23 aircraft in parking spots and shelters next to a half-mile-long (800-meter) runway. 

There are signs that a large number of people are meant to stay on site at any given time, as the complex contains six large buildings possibly used as lodgings and/or classrooms, a soccer field, indoor exercises facilities and a garage that can house at least 9 buses. 

One feature that suggests the facility may be an air force base or pilot training center is what appears to be a map painted on an outdoor court. North Korean air force pilots have been seen in state media using such courts to conduct training where they hold toy aircraft while walking along planned routes on the map. 

The complex has continued to appear active recently, with signs of controlled field burning around the runway earlier this month and workers clearing snow from the runway this past winter. But no aircraft have appeared outdoors in available imagery on the runway or parking areas since Sept. 2019.

Between Sept. 21 and 23 that year, two white Mil Mi-17 helicopters that were parked at the north end of the facility since it was built (near the now-demolished aircraft shelters) appeared to be moved to an outdoor lot at Pyongyang International Airport.

The two may be Air Koryo Mil Mi-17 helicopters with tail numbers 847 and 867 that were used for chartered tourist flights, though tourists typically boarded them from Pyongyang Airport even during the period where they were based at the Kumsusan airfield. NK Pro could not find satellite imagery taken on days of known tourist flights in order to match their identity.

The only other aircraft seen inside the complex in available Google Earth and Planet Labs imagery were a military An-2/Y-5 biplane with green camouflage livery, a small white unidentified biplane and a small white helicopter in May 2015 and a small helicopter again a year later.

Meanwhile, the construction worker camp next to the airfield appeared between Feb. 8 and 14 and now covers an area of 26 acres (10.5 hectares). 

Since 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has destroyed three of his own private airfields built just years earlier to make room for private horse tracks, while he has ordered the military to destroy another three air force airfields in order to build giant greenhouse farms. 

The mixed civilian-military-use Uiju Airport was also transformed into a COVID-19 disinfection and quarantine center in 2021, though this might be reversed once authorities declare the pandemic emergency over.

At present, the air force is known to be carrying out just a single major airfield construction project, at Sunchon north of the capital. 

Edited by Arius Derr