Songshan
Taipei's downtown civil-military airport. Single runway, tight noise envelope, IFR operations through a basin ringed by terrain — the field that taught Taiwan how to fly precision approaches.
Strategic role
Songshan was Taiwan's primary international airport from 1950 until Taoyuan opened in 1979; today it operates as a civil-military field with a single 2,605-metre runway 10/28 and a 1500–2200 UTC daily curfew. The airport sits inside the Taipei basin under Class C airspace; the aerodrome itself is designated a special airport because terrain and obstacles compress the approach geometry. EMAS material at the runway 10 end is dimensioned to stop an A330 exiting the runway at 70 KT or less — the only such installation on the island. Civilian operations concentrate on cross-strait, regional Asia, and government-charter traffic; military movements share taxiways A, B, and D, and the field hosts the Republic of China Air Force's VIP fleet. Songshan is hungATC's best laboratory for runway-incursion detection because the single-runway cadence and military mix produce the highest density of edge cases per movement of any field on the network.
Regional context
APAC hubs within 1,500 km — filled pins are live, hollow rings are reachable but not yet active.
Movement area diagram
Reading the field, west to east
The straight-in side
The 10 threshold faces Yuanshan and the Shilin basin. It has the airport's only ILS — runway 10 inbound is a precision approach, the easy side. Northeast monsoon between October and March keeps this end as the dominant arrival direction; westbound traffic from Hongqiao, Haneda, and Gimpo lines up over Highway 1 and tracks east into the field. TransAsia GE235 departed from here on 4 February 2015, lost both engines through crew error, and crashed into the Keelung River five kilometres out.
Wang Da-hong's terminal beside an air-force base
Terminal 1 (1971), designed by architect Wang Da-hong and now a Taipei City heritage asset, handles the international "Golden Quadrilateral" — Songshan-Hongqiao (松虹, since 14 June 2010), Songshan-Haneda (since 31 October 2010), Songshan-Gimpo (since April 2012). Terminal 2 reopened on 29 March 2011 as the dedicated domestic gateway. The 1.25 km² military side hosts Songshan Air Base Command, the ROC Air Force VIP transport fleet — including the Boeing 737-800 tail number 3701 — and northern Taiwan SAR operations.
EMAS, LDA, and the offset approach
Runway 28 has no ILS. Surrounding terrain — Yangmingshan to the north, Nangang and Xizhi hills east, dense urban high-rises — prevents an on-axis localizer array, so the published procedure is a Localizer-Type Directional Aid (LDA) offset roughly seven degrees from centreline. Pilots track the LDA, then visually side-step onto runway heading on short final. At the east end of the runway, Taiwan's only EMAS bed — 122 m × 69 m, installed by Zodiac Arresting Systems in 2011 — provides 300 metres of stopping distance for an overrun.
Runways and landing systems
| Designator | Dimensions | Surface | TORA | TODA | ASDA | LDA | ILS / Localizer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 2,605 × 60 m | CONC+ASPH | 2,605 | 2,605 | 2,656 | 2,605 | — |
| 28 | 2,605 × 60 m | CONC+ASPH | 2,605 | 2,605 | 2,605 | 2,605 | — |
ATS communications
10 frequencies
| Service | Callsign | MHz | Hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tower | SONGSHAN TOWER | 118.100 | Tower | Tower control, 2100-1600 UTC |
| Tower | SONGSHAN TOWER | 126.300 | Helicopter; | Helicopter; tower control alternate frequency, 2100-1600 UTC |
| Tower | SONGSHAN TOWER | 236.600 | Tower | Tower control, 2100-1600 UTC |
| Tower | SONGSHAN TOWER | 275.800 | Tower | Tower control, 2100-1600 UTC |
| Ground | SONGSHAN GROUND | 121.200 | Clearance | Clearance delivery; ground control alternate frequency |
| Ground | SONGSHAN GROUND | 121.900 | Ground | Ground control |
| ATIS | SONGSHAN AIRPORT | 127.400 | Data-link | Data-link D-ATIS AVBL, 2100-1600 UTC |
| ATIS | SONGSHAN AIRPORT | 341.000 | Data-link | Data-link D-ATIS AVBL, 2100-1600 UTC |
| Emergency | EMERGENCY | 121.500 | H24 | |
| Emergency | EMERGENCY | 243.000 | H24 |
Procedures by runway end
Departures fan out from the threshold marked at the top of each column; arrivals converge into it. Names follow the current AIRAC cycle.
Stand and apron structure
Per-stand records (coordinates, max aircraft, surface strength) are operator-console only; the structure summary is what we publish.
Coverage and reception
VHF receiver inside the Taipei basin. Continuous Tower and Ground capture; the single-runway cadence makes RCSS our best laboratory for runway-incursion detection work.
Channel list, antenna coordinates, and live transcript stream are not yet public. Contact us for partnership inquiries.