The smaller LTTE Iranamadu airstrip (Google Earth images as of 2003-2005) is not hot news right now and hopefully won’t be. This post was inspired by a well written article by Dheshapalana which has a strategic point of view (two very rare qualities when it comes to writing about “the war”).
The image below shows the southern end of the Iranamadu smaller airstrip.
The image below is a lower altitude view of the northern end
The image below shows the location of this airstrip in relation to the other Iranamadu airstrip (which is featured in an older post)
Location data
The wikimapia location is already marked and littered with the usual futile screaming.
The Google Earth .kmz file is on my Google Earth forum post.
The grid refs are:
- 9°14’40.15″N
- 80°29’42.36″E
Background
There is much talk third airstrip near Pilaikudirippu supposedly “south-east of the second airstrip” (one of the two Iranamadu locations) which doesn’t seem to be on Google satellite images since those are from around 2003-2005.
To add to the confusion there’s supposed to be another airstrip around Pudukuduiruppu supposedly “about 26 km northwest of Mullaitivu” that should be in the images. But after much zooming around I havn’t been able to locate it. Maybe its recent too but this HTML version of a PDF article on Google cache seems to say that it was being developed in 2005. Maybe the satellite images are older.
Another issue with locating these places is that English does some horrible mangling when it comes to transliterating Sinhala and Tamil names. But that’s going off course. The Centre for Information Recources Management (CIRM) has some helpful maps. Most resent (as of this post) are administrative maps of the Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts. They have maps of other places as well.
The other geoblogs are in the archives.
Cerno 
Good work! And you’re so right about the GOSL being slow off the mark. Think we bloggers should form a supplementary NSC Advisory Committee online??;) I’m re-posting a comment I made in response to yours on my own blog:
Cerno, I think you spotted a third strip…. look north of the one you’ve flagged for the main one and north of that to what clearly appears to be a provisional one – the smallest of the lot, that I refer to.
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You mean this one (Wikimapia location)?
🙂 And I thought it was some sort of abandoned road…
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That’s it. If you look towards the eastern end of the strip, you will notice how trees have been felled to facilitate for take-off and landing. The obstruction towards the centre could perhaps have been placed either to mislead or during the course of construction. The length is approx. 327m, sufficient for take-off/landing of a Z-lin.
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Sorry, that should be 372m.
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Guys, actually GOSL knew but, they have no excuse now thought ! look they have another one in mullaitivu which is where the Zlins are taking off from now ! Pentagon gave SLAF the images but, Ranil & CBK were clueless !Too bad ! but, we’ll get ’em soon ! Have ya seen the tiger video after Anu. base hit ? Where is that road or strip at ?
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rajarata: The LTTE airstrip in Mullaitivu is supposed to have been built after the Google Earth satellite images were taken. The Google Earth images of Sri Lanka date back to 2003-2005
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Hi cerno , hey mate where in the world iz this third dirt strip the smaller one ? This is dirt good enough for takeoff by a Zlin right ? Cuz, if ya look at the ltte photo of the Zlin, they are sitting on dirt right ?
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rajataraThe third airstrip is visible on wikimapia
It looks more like a half build road just south of Kilinochchi town. Castedeus has some commentary on it.
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I found it ! Thanks ! North of Iranmadu ~!
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Hang on people…. It will not take long till the SL soldiers put an end to this LTTE terrorist menance.
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