 Following the 1962 mining accident and the subsequent Kings Bay Affair, Ny-Ålesund was transformed from a mining town to a research outpost.The need for an airport to support commercial activity in Ny-Ålesund arose in 1965 with the construction of Kongsfjord Telemetry Station.The Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research needed to have an aviation connection with Longyearbyen to send magnetic tapes with the downloaded data to Germany.