Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda Airbase is located in Caracas

Caracas

Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

, Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. The airport is named for Francisco de Miranda

Francisco de Miranda

Sebastián Francisco de Miranda Ravelo y Rodríguez de Espinoza , commonly known as Francisco de Miranda , was a Venezuelan revolutionary...

 a South American revolutionary, though most people refer to this airport as La Carlota. On November 27, 1992, the airport was bombed during a coup attempt. In 2006, Leopoldo López

Leopoldo López

Leopoldo López Mendoza is a Venezuelan politician and economist. From 2000 until 2008, López was the mayor of the Chacao Municipality of Caracas. A 2006 Los Angeles Times article describes López as an immensely popular leader of the opposition to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, as well as a...

, mayor of the Chacao Municipality

Chacao Municipality, Miranda

Chacao Municipality, is one of the five political and administrative subdivisions of the city of Caracas, Venezuela. The other four are Baruta, El Hatillo, Libertador and Sucre. This legal entity is known as the Caracas Metropolitan District...

(where La Carlota is located), has proposed demolishing the airport and building homes and businesses on the land.
This airport is now closed to public use (since 2005). It is used only for military purposes and aeromedic flights (EMS).

Controversy

Opponents of President Hugo Chávez have claimed that private use of the airfield is allowed for people who get individual permission from the government. Direct observation of the airfield shows several landings per day by the kinds of small jets used for general aviation. No planespotter information is available for this airport, so it is difficult to determine whether these jets are military, government or private.

External links

• Video of the November 27, 1992, coup attempt