Airliner at Nicosia Airport: what's the story?

Factual Questions
1

I was just browsing a list of abandoned sites around the world, which included Nicosia Airport on Cyprus, closed since the war of the early 1970s and the partitioning of the island. The accompanying photo was of a moldering airliner. Looking at Google Earth, yup, there it sits on an apron near the terminals, the only plane left in the whole facility. (35° 09’ 42.8" N, 33° 16’ 24.6" E)

Does anyone know the story of this lonely bird?

Interesting that none of the runways of the airport are X-ed out as not maintained/out of service. Isn’t that an international convention? Or is it just assumed that if you’re dumb enough to fly in contested airspace you know not to land there?

2

Well, it looks to me like an MD-82. What airline flew those and landed at Nicosia?

ETA: answering my own question. It looks like an MD-80 series plane, and damn near every airline in Europe used them.

3

I should have included the original photo - this link should work. If not, it’s on Conde Nast Traveler, “15 Eerily Beautiful Abandoned Places”, last link in the slideshow.

Yep, link works. The livery seems to be Arabic; not sure if anyone can ID the airline or read the logo script.

Great slideshow, by the way. I am fascinated by abandoned sites and photograph several up here in FOSONE year-round. Just printed a wall of 11x14’s of one site.

4

A quick bit of Googling shows that the plane in question is a Hawker-Siddeley Trident, serial number 5B-DAB, and that it was damaged by gunfire during the Turkish invasion.

5

It has three engines and the MD-80/DC-9 series only has 2 engines.

I thought it was a Boeing 727 but Shakester probably is correct.

6

Here.

7

I love the shot of the Bulgarian Communist Party Headquarters. It could easily be re-purposed as a lair for a Bond villain.

And there you go. I was trying to ID the sucker from the Google Earth overheads.

8

Nice link, Tom. Thanks. I’d forgotten that the airport was basically new (4-5 years) when the war shut it down.

9

I had no idea that the American ambassador was killed in that fighting. There must have been some very strained diplomacy going on among the US, Greece, Turkey, and NATO at that point.

10

I’d love to visit Pripyat and I’m trying to persuade my regular travel partner to arrange a trip to Kyiv so we can take a day tour there, but he’s not interested.

11

My wife thinks I’m insane with a capital in- for wanting the same thing. I’d love to not only see the site, but do more than a short drive-through tour of it. I’ve spent too many hours scouring the GE imaging and matching it to photos and notes.

12

Battleship Island on that list was re-purposed for a Bond villain in Skyfall. Although they didn’t shoot on the island proper, they recreated a portion of it on a soundstage and did the rest with CGI.
Hashima Island - Wikipedia