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Kokoda Airport is a small grass airstrip serving the town of Kokoda in Northern Province, Papua New Guinea, at the northern end of the famous Kokoda Trail. It offers a single grass runway at an elevation of 1,234 feet, with no instrument approach, radio frequencies or navigational aids published, making it a strictly visual, self-announcing arrival for sim pilots.
Kokoda Airport sits beside the town of Kokoda in Papua New Guinea's Northern Province, at the northern terminus of the historic Kokoda Trail. It is a modest single-runway grass strip at 1,234 feet elevation, of interest to sim pilots chiefly for its dramatic wartime history and its position amid the rugged Owen Stanley Range terrain that the trail crosses.
The airfield lies at Kokoda in Northern (Oro) Province, Papua New Guinea, close to the Mambare River and the Yodda valley, and at the foot of the Owen Stanley Range through which the Kokoda Trail runs toward Port Moresby. No controlled airspace, ATZ boundaries or navaid details are published for the field, consistent with its status as an unattended rural strip.
Kokoda Airport has a single physical runway, 17/35, surfaced in grass and 3,530 feet long. There is no ILS or other instrument approach available, so all arrivals and departures must be flown visually.
No communications frequencies are published for Kokoda Airport, and there is no known air traffic control or air-ground service. No navaids or instrument approach procedures are associated with the field, so navigation to and from the strip must be conducted visually or using GPS.
The airstrip lies in the valley beside the town of Kokoda, close to the Mambare River, with the steep terrain of the Owen Stanley Range and the start of the Kokoda Trail immediately to the south, providing the principal visual cues for locating the field.
The strip was built in 1932 as Kokoda Airstrip to support gold mining operations along the Mambare River and in the Yodda valley and surrounding mountains, consisting of a single grass landing strip oriented roughly north to south. An iron shed in the southeast corner was used for loading aircraft, while a barracks in the northeast corner housed the Papuan Infantry Battalion. The airfield became a focal point of the Second World War battle along the Kokoda Trail, being taken and retaken several times by Japanese and Australian forces with heavy casualties on both sides. Japanese troops occupied the field from 10 August 1942 but never operated aircraft from it, instead relying on airdrops to supply their ground troops, and had withdrawn by late October 1942. During the campaign the strip was used by Stinson ambulance aircraft to evacuate casualties.
Kokoda Airport continues to serve the town of Kokoda as a small regional airstrip. On 11 August 2009, an Airlines PNG de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter flying from Port Moresby to Kokoda, Airlines PNG Flight 4684, crashed into a mountain near Isurava while attempting a go-around, with the loss of all 11 passengers and 2 crew. No current operator, fuel availability or opening hours are documented for the field.
