Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Momote Airport sits on Los Negros Island in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, serving the town of Lorengau and the wider Manus Island community across a connecting bridge. It occupies a single long runway built on the site of a major Allied and Japanese wartime airfield, and today handles scheduled Air Niugini services alongside occasional business jet stopovers.
Momote Airport is a public airfield on Los Negros Island in the Admiralty Islands group of Papua New Guinea, operated by the PNG National Airports Corporation Limited. It serves Lorengau and Manus Province generally, with Manus Island itself linked to Los Negros by a bridge. For a simulator pilot, Momote is notable both for its single generously long coral-based runway and for its dramatic history as a frontline Pacific War airfield, making it an interesting waypoint on Pacific-themed flights.
The airport lies on Los Negros Island, part of the Admiralty Islands in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, and is connected by bridge to the main settlement area on Manus Island. It is the airport serving Lorengau, the provincial capital.
Momote has a single physical runway, 16/34, measuring 6132 feet in length with a hard surface, and it is lit for night operations. There is no ILS available.
An AWOS is available on 129.35 MHz. Flight service is provided by Madang FSS on 120.1 MHz.
A memorial to the 1944 operations of the US 1st Cavalry Division on Los Negros Island stands near the north end of the airfield, offering a distinctive ground reference for pilots familiar with the field's history.
The airfield originated during the Second World War, built by Imperial Japanese forces at Momote and known to them as Hayne Airfield, after their name for Los Negros Island, Hayne Island. The original Japanese runway was 4,100 feet long by 300 feet wide, with three taxiways and twelve revetments under construction, and it hosted units of the 63rd Sentai and 14th Sentai. The airfield was captured by the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division on 2 March 1944 during the Battle of Los Negros, part of the wider Admiralty Islands campaign. Seabees of the 40th Naval Construction Battalion repaired the strip, which became operational on 18 May 1944, though fighters had begun landing just two days after its capture. The runway was subsequently extended to 7,800 feet long by 130 feet wide, with 75-foot shoulders, built on a coral base with marsden matting covering the final 1,000 feet at each end, and a 7,000-barrel fuel depot was established on site. The US Navy set up Aviation Repair and Overhaul Unit No. 1 at Momote in spring 1944, conducting maintenance and testing of naval aircraft and supplying aircraft for major assaults as far afield as the Philippines. The airfield hosted a substantial Allied presence, including the headquarters of the Thirteenth Air Force and XIII Bomber Command, the 5th Bomb Group and its constituent squadrons flying B-24s, the 307th Bombardment Group, the 403d Troop Carrier Group, a detachment of the 419th Night Fighter Squadron, and RNZAF and RAAF units including No. 19 Squadron RNZAF flying F4Us and RAAF squadrons 76, 77 and 79 flying Kittyhawks and Spitfires, along with associated support and radar units. A memorial to the 1st Cavalry Division's 1944 operation remains near the airfield's north end.
Momote Airport today operates with a single 16/34 runway capable of accommodating Boeing 737 operations and night flying. It is served by scheduled Air Niugini flights connecting to Kavieng, Lae, Madang and Port Moresby, and is occasionally used by private business jets as a stopover on routes between the United States and India.
