Tit Mellil, chronicles of an air traffic controller
Documents, photos, testimonies of a bygone era. The book “Tit Mellil , more than an airfield” which accompanies the exhibition of the same title at Mohammed V airport (on view until August 23, 2022) is a tribute from a son to his father. They are also chronicles of the golden age of an airfield that marked the glorious years of civil aviation in Morocco until the 1970s. The book, produced in partnership with the Atelier de l’observatoire and INDA, is built around the archives of Farid Ahmed Bennani, air traffic controller who, freshly graduated in 1967, landed on the light aircraft airfield of Tit Mellil. The dashing air controller was entrusted with the heavy responsibility of directing planes on the ground and especially in the air: granting authorizations, sounding the weather, avoiding overflights of certain sites sensitive to flights, or even no-fly zones, checking flight plans, the reliability of the pilot and his mood of the moment… More than a job, an all-consuming passion was born. Farid Ahmed Bennani exercised his passion for thirty-eight years, involving his whole family in this adventure. “Born in 1989, I did not know the most effervescent period since my father retired in 2005 and the activity was in decline. However, I spent many Sundays there when he was on duty, playing in the sports center and walking along the sheds scrutinizing each of the airplanes and other aircrafts in preparation or under repair. Going up the slope of the terminal, I used to join my father to eat with him, sometimes interrupted by his radio calls. I did not understand much of his gibberish, except that the plane must always take off and land facing into the wind: Alpha Bravo hello- 5/5- runway in use 36 QNH 1210-QFE 1009- cleared to taxi to the point of waiting and call back…”, remembers Réda Bennani, author of the book and son of the air traffic controller who died in 2020. Réda’s father left however important archives that the son completed over the course of his research and multiple meetings with people who knew the airfield either as professionals or as amateurs.
The author has collected more than a thousand photos from signalmen, pilots, and active members at the airfield as well as press articles, digitized VHS, flight logs, parachute jumps, and testimonials. From these private archives, documentary research, interviews, and several contributions between France and Morocco, Réda Bennani tells the story of Tit Mellil, its construction, its particular architecture, and its key personalities such as Touria Chaoui (first Arab woman pilot and third in the world at the age of 16). Réda also recounts the air rallies of the time, aerobatics, parachuting, and crashes. It offers a panorama of what existed by bringing the reader back to a bygone era, which undeniably raises the question of the future of abandoned places and neglected stories.
An exceptional architecture
Like the Tit Mellil Observation and Rehabilitation Center (both designed by Jean François Zevaco), the airfield has attracted the interest of the greatest architecture journals in the world. The exceptional building, with its retro futuristic look, represents a national heritage in Morocco’s aviation history. The construction of its terminal began in 1951 and was completed in 1955. It is the result of collaboration between three architects: Jean-François Zévaco and his partner, Paul Messina, as well as Dominique Basciano, an Italian architect working in Morocco. The building is made up of two separate parts linked together by a 28-metre span walkway. The first part, flanked by the parking runways and the control tower, is dedicated to the terminal and its administrative premises. The second, opening to the east onto a large terrace overlooking the grounds, houses the club, its lounges, and its restaurant. High sunshades shelter the space to the west. The whole thing is on curved V-stilts. The access ramp covered by a cantilevered awning allows tourists to access customs control, then the flying club. The flying club lounge contains a fireplace with a local stone mantle placed in the center of the room. Its inverted V-shaped frame comes out of the mantle and is thus treated in a sculptural way. The walls of the lounge are white and smooth.
Amine BOUSHABA
