Safi

35°50'30"N 014°29'30"E
 
Runway: E-W - 1200meters/3600feet - grass
Runway: NW-SE - 1200meters/3600feet - grass

Safi air field, or more precisely the airstrips at Safi, was an auxiliary airfield to RAF Luqa and RAF Hal Far.
It was constructed from 1941 by order of Air Commodore Maynard, who foresaw that both airfields would become a prime bombing target during World War II.
Initially seen only as a way of dispersing aircraft from both airbases, and constructed by the Malta Police Force along the road between Luqa and Hal Far, it soon became its own runways.
The airstrips, located just under 2miles from Luqa airfield, were completed in February 1942.
The airstrips and their aircraft pens proved vital to the survival of aircraft in the severe bombings of 1942.
Later the Hampshire Regiment finished the work, strenghtening and improving the pens with earth-filled petrol cans and stone from bombed buildings.
Although the pens were numbered, new pilots finding their way around usually experienced difficulty in doing so.


Safi airfield (below) in relation to RAF Luqa (above) during World War II. It is pretty easy to see how
Safi became part of Luqa simply by connecting the two runways into a single long one.

Soon after the war was over the airstrips fell into disuse.
Some of the land was returned to the original owners, and later the lenghtening of the main runway at Luqa went straight over the location of the airfield.
Not much remains of the site, with the exeption of a few hangars and nissen huts opposite the Luqa terminal building.
The nissen huts were still there in the mid 1970s, according to Phil Bennison.
He wrote me "In the mid 70's I was on 809 sqdn FAA based at RAF Honnington whilst ashore from the Ark Royal.
It was a time when Harrold Wilson was withdrawing from the Far East etc.
To back up his ideas the sqadron was detached to Malta to try to prove his theory that we could have air cover over the Med without aircraft carriers.
Our Buccaneer squadron operated from Luqa but as we were a full sqadron we were billeted at Safi where the accomodation and mess hall and galley had been kept in good condition."


Remaining hangars of Safi airfield in the 1950s


This aerodrome map of RAF Luqa, published in January 1953, shows the outlines of runways of
the abandoned Safi airfield to the southeast (Bill Glenn, via email).


Safi Hangars in 2009. One year after this photo was taken the hangar bottom right was deconstructed for a
reconstruction at the Malta Aviation museum somewhere in 2011-2012. (Google Earth)


Old hangar of Safi airfield which was finally demolished in March 2010.


The hangars at Safi after a major renovation of the area had taken place in 2011 (Google Earth)