 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 . A road was built from the settlement to Hamnerabben , the site of the telemetry station . The top of the hill was sufficiently flat that a runway could be constructed . It was built by giving a 850 @-@ meter ( 2 @,@ 790 ft ) long straight section of the road a width of 40 meters ( 130 ft ) . Waste oil was poured on the gravel to bind it . A smaller road was built to the north of the runway to allow road transport while the runway was in use . 
