The airspace of Ibiza airport, in addition to those of Tarragona, Barcelona and Reus, is suffering a closure that could last for up to three hours, from 8:19am to 12:17pm.
The reason, as explained from the Twitter of air traffic controllers, is “the uncontrolled re-entry of a Chinese rocket into the atmosphere”.
For this reason, a ‘rate zero‘ has been established at the affected airports (which is the name given by the European aviation safety office to situations in which no aircraft can leave the airport of origin to the affected destinations). As such, the arrivals and departures of some scheduled flights from Ibiza airport may be affected by this situation.
The rocket
According to EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency), the Chinese rocket is a Rocket Long March 5B launched on October 31st, 2022. It weighs between 17 and 23 tons and is about the size of a 10-story building, making it one of the largest pieces of debris to enter the atmosphere in recent years.
These launches are part of the project to build the first Chinese special station, which will be completed before the end of the year and will be called Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”). This rocket also had a specific mission: to send the Mengtian laboratory module to the small scientific city floating in space.
The air agency experts are of the opinion that since this is an uncontrolled entry into the atmosphere, it is difficult to predict in what area the debris of this rocket will fall.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.