Drafted — not technically validated
Record revision 1 · A Syrian Air Force helicopter base in Idlib, overrun by rebels in January 2013 and a Turkish post in 2020.
A real-world airfield as described in public sources, and how sim maps represent it. Units, facilities and names change; each is dated where the sources allow, and the charts are not for navigation. Use current official publications for flight planning.
Location and identity
- Location
- South of Taftanaz and east of Ta'um, Idlib Governorate [1]
- Country or territory
- Syria
- Coordinates
- 35.9722° N, 36.7831° E [1]
- Elevation
- 1,027 ft (313 m) [1]
- Identifiers
- SY-0001
- Other names
- Afis Air Base, as OpenStreetMap names it [3]
- Opened
- no opening date is given in the sources consulted
- Closed
- OurAirports lists it as a closed airfield, without a date [2]
- Theatre
- Middle East
Role and operators
- Status
- Closed · No current operator
- Roles today
- None
- Operators
- Syrian Air Force · Syria, air force · until Jan 2013 [1]
Units
Permanently based units belong to the airfield; rotational and temporarily deployed units are there for a period or an operation. Dates are when the sources place each unit there; "as of" is when a source described it as current.
Current
Turkish Armed Forces post built on the base [1]
- Service
- Turkey, joint or defence-wide
- Basing
- Temporarily deployed
- When
- since 6 Feb 2020
Earlier
Two Syrian Air Force helicopter squadrons [1]
- Service
- Syria, air force
- Basing
- Permanently based
- Aircraft
- Mi-8/17
- When
- until Jan 2013
Runways and facilities
The sources do not date these figures. Facilities not listed here are not documented in the sources cited, which does not mean the airfield lacks them.
| Runway | Length | Width | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| East–west strip [3]about 1,200 m, measured along the strip as OpenStreetMap maps it; no published runway data was found | 3,932 ft (1,198 m) | Not given | Not given |
| North-east strip [3]about 850 m, measured as above | 2,787 ft (849 m) | Not given | Not given |
- Arresting gear
- None documented in the sources cited
- Navaids
- None documented in the sources cited
Figure 1 — Airfield map of Taftanaz Air Base (to scale)
- Runway
- Taxiway
- Helipad
- Airfield boundary
Runways, taxiways, aprons and buildings inside the airfield boundary, true north up, drawn from OpenStreetMap data retrieved 2026-10-28. Widths come from the map data or, where it gives none, a typical 45 m runway and 18 m taxiway. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL 1.0. Community-mapped, not an official aerodrome chart, and not for navigation.
Sim maps
Represented in: DCS: Syria
DCS: Syria DCS World · Present day
Represented as “Taftanaz” · checked 2026-10-28 [4]
Only the maps marked represented or confirmed absent have been checked. Any other map may or may not represent this airfield.
Other maps in Middle East, not yet checked for this airfield, which may lie outside them: DCS: Persian Gulf, DCS: Sinai, DCS: Iraq, DCS: Iraq North, Falcon BMS: Israel.
Role today
Taftanaz was a Syrian Air Force helicopter base in Idlib Governorate, home to two squadrons of Mi-8/17 Hips until rebels took it in January 2013. [1] OurAirports now lists it as closed. [2] OpenStreetMap names the field Afis Air Base. [3]
History
Rebels led by fighters of the al-Nusra Front and an Ahrar al-Sham battalion overran the base in the second week of January 2013. [1] On 6 February 2020, as government forces advanced in north-western Syria, the Turkish Armed Forces built a military post on the base; the Syrian Air Force struck it within hours, and on 2 March 2020 a government attack killed one Turkish soldier and wounded three, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. [1]
The airfield
No published runway data was found. OpenStreetMap maps two strips: one running roughly east–west, about 1,200 m long, and a shorter one of about 850 m running north-east. [3]
Sources
- Taftanaz Air Base. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taftanaz_Air_Base (accessed 2026-10-28). A short article: the helicopter squadrons, the rebel capture of 2013 and the Turkish post of 2020. Position and elevation from its infobox.
- Airport and runway data, SY-0001. OurAirports open data (public domain, community-maintained). https://davidmegginson.github.io/ourairports-data/airports.csv (accessed 2026-10-28). Row for SY-0001 Taftanaz Air Base in airports.csv, typed as closed; no runways are listed.
- OpenStreetMap aerodrome way/112188570 (Afis Air Base) and its runways. OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0). https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/112188570 (accessed 2026-10-28). Community-mapped. Runway lengths here are measured along the mapped lines, not published figures.
- dcs-world-schema reference data: Syria airbases (Taftanaz.json). dcs-world-schema, open-source data extracted by running DCS World 2.9.30.28536. https://github.com/YoloWingPixie/dcs-world-schema/blob/c3091e6c08fb8167e26145d0e33c10e4140c6fe7/dcs-world-reference/latest/airbases/Syria/Taftanaz.json (accessed 2026-10-28). With its beacon and navaid files, as tabled on the DCS: Syria map page.
Wikipedia articles are secondary sources and can change; they are cited with the date they were read. FAA airport data and diagrams are official but are reissued every 28 or 56 days; each is cited with the edition read. pydcs mirrors the DCS terrain data at the commit linked.