El Lucero del Zulia Airport problem reports

SVLE is duplicated in twice your database.

REF: 40182, IDENT: SVLE, NAME: El Lucero del Zulia Airport

REF: 40456, IDENT: SVLE, NAME: Aeropuerto La Esmeralda

I am currently going through the database in order to merge it with my personal DB on airports and came across a few Dupe ICAO ID's. This was one of them.

I read the problem report on this being a nonexistent airport, so deleting this one would eliminate the Dupe ID's issue, but before I did that, I decided to do some research. According to US DOD chart TPC K-26C Dated May 15, 1996, the airport does (or did) exist but about 3NM north of the L/L listed on this site. I did go looking for evidence of the runway but found the area mostly overgrown and I found very little to verify the runway location 100%. I have worked on updating DOD/FAA charts during my career and realize that the “Allowable Error” on an airports position is 1 SM, if it is more that that, a position arrow should be utilized OR you must label the Airport position as “Estimated”. The thing to remember, is the “Allowable Error” is there to allow the cartographer to slightly move an airport position symbol to a less congested area of the map if needed. DOD TPC charts are therefore usually accurate enough in non-congested areas.

I located the airport on Sky Vector as well, but 3 NM south of where the DOD charts said it should be and with a different ICAO ID of SVFZ. In the past if the DOD charts and Sky Vector offered different info, I went with the DOD charts and found the airport on satellite photos to verify.

Bottom line, the airport does or did in fact exist, but is now no longer in use and too overgrown to find. I will continue to try to locate the runway, my next stop will be to go through local contour maps to find it.