Mehrabad began modestly. English Wikipedia says the site had been used by the Imperial Iranian Army’s first armoured and mechanised artillery forces, and that it was first used as an airfield in 1938, for aviation-club aircraft. Tehran’s older military airfield was Doshan Tappeh in the east of the city, where Iran’s early aircraft factory stood, while Mehrabad lies in the west.

After the Second World War Mehrabad became an air force base, and it was here that the Imperial Iranian Air Force entered the jet age. According to Wikipedia, Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star trainers began arriving in 1956 and Republic F-84G Thunderjets in 1957, delivered under American military aid. In the two decades that followed, as the Shah built up the air force with American aircraft, the capital’s airfield was also the country’s main civil gateway.

That dual identity has never gone away. The same concrete serves the airlines, the air force’s transports and fighters, and the aircraft of the government.

On 24 January 1979, Wikipedia records, the military took control of Mehrabad and other airports as the monarchy faltered. Eight days later, on 1 February, Ayatollah Khomeini landed at Mehrabad aboard a chartered Air France aircraft, the arrival that opened the final days of the old order.

Nineteen months later the base was a target. Iraq’s surprise air strikes of 22 September 1980 hit Mehrabad and other major air bases. Wikipedia’s account of Operation Kaman 99 says the raids cratered runways that were quickly repaired, without significant damage to the air force, and that on 23 September eight F-4s took off from Mehrabad to make a second attack on al-Rasheed air base near Baghdad. The scale of the Iranian counter-strike, and the claim that Iraqi air efficiency fell by 55 per cent, come from Iranian accounts and are marked in Wikipedia as needing a citation.

Mehrabad has seen some of Iran’s worst air accidents. On 21 January 1980 Iran Air Flight 291 crashed into the Alborz mountains on approach, killing all 128 aboard. On 8 February 1993 a mid-air collision near the airport killed all 133 people on the two aircraft involved.

The worst military accident came on 6 December 2005. An air force C-130E Hercules, 5-8519, bound for Bandar Abbas with 68 journalists on their way to cover military exercises, reported engine trouble shortly after take-off and tried to return. It came down on an apartment building in a densely populated suburb. Wikipedia, citing the Associated Press and others, gives 94 dead on board and 12 on the ground.

From 2007 international flights moved to the new Imam Khomeini airport south of the city, and Mehrabad became a domestic airport, handling 17,464,216 passengers in 2017 by Wikipedia’s figure, while the air force stayed. The mix still carries risk: on 10 August 2014 Sepahan Airlines Flight 5915 crashed shortly after take-off from Mehrabad, killing 39 people and injuring nine.

The base has also been a step in senior careers. Brig. Gen. Bahman Behmard, who took command of the air force in December 2025, led the 4th air base at Dezful from 2019 for about two years and then commanded the air base at Mehrabad, according to Wikipedia, before moving to the operations directorate of the General Staff in 2023.

In the Twelve-Day War of 13–24 June 2025, Israel’s air force struck air bases across Iran. Wikipedia’s Mehrabad article says the airport closed after explosions on 14 June 2025 and that an Israeli strike hit two F-14 fighters at the airport, destroying one. The Iranian authorities did not publish a comparable account of damage.

When the United States and Israel went to war with Iran on 28 February 2026, the base was hit again. Wikipedia records an Israeli airstrike on Mehrabad on 3 March 2026, and its air force article reports four aircraft destroyed on the ground. These are reports relayed by Wikipedia; Iran’s official position on its losses at Mehrabad has not been published in the sources consulted, and the condition of the base after the wars cannot be confirmed from open sources.