Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Casco Cove Coast Guard Station (PAAT) lies on the remote southern tip of Attu Island, the westernmost of the Aleutian Islands and one of the most isolated airfields in the United States. Built during the Second World War and later home to a US Coast Guard LORAN navigation station, the field closed to routine operations in 2010 but its single hard runway remains available for emergency use.
Casco Cove Coast Guard Station is a former US Coast Guard airfield on Attu Island, at the far western end of the Aleutian chain in Alaska. Also known as LORAN Station Attu, it was built as a military airfield during the Second World War and later served as a Coast Guard LORAN-C transmitting station before closing in 2010. For a simulator pilot it is notable chiefly for its extreme isolation, its wartime history and the challenging flying environment of the North Pacific.
Attu Island sits roughly 1,481 miles west of Anchorage, at the extreme western tip of the Aleutian Islands, making the airfield one of the most remote in the United States. The station lies near Massacre Bay and Casco Cove, close to the site of the former US Navy base there, on the southern part of the island. The island itself is largely uninhabited and protected, with public access restricted.
The field has a single physical runway, 02/20, 5,965 feet long with a hard surface.
No communications frequencies are published for the field, and there is no known air traffic control or advisory service in operation.
Useful reference points around the field include Massacre Bay and Theodore Point, both associated with the airfield's history and location on the southern coast of Attu Island, along with Alexai Point and Murder Point further along the coast, the latter notable as the site of a fatal aircraft accident when it was mistaken for Alexai Point in poor visibility.
The airfield was established as Naval Air Facility Attu on 7 June 1943, just seven days after Attu Island was declared secured following the battle to retake it from Japanese forces, and was built by Seabees of Naval Construction Battalion 4. In 1960 a LORAN navigation station was relocated to Casco Cove near the former Navy base at Massacre Bay, and the facility became known as LORAN Station Attu, operated by the US Coast Guard with resident personnel but no families on the island. On 1 January 1945, a Lockheed P-38G Lightning flying from Alexai Point crashed in Temnac Valley just west of the station during a low-level training mission; the wreck was recovered in 1999 and is now on static display at Elmendorf Air Force Base. On 30 July 1982 a US Coast Guard HC-130 transport crashed south of the station on Weston Mountain after its crew mistook Murder Point for Alexai Point while trying to navigate visually in low cloud, killing two of the eleven people on board. The LORAN signal from Attu ceased transmission on 8 February 2010, with the joint Russian-American signal ending on 1 August 2010, and the station closed formally on 27 August 2010.
Casco Cove Coast Guard Station has been closed since 2010 and the island has been uninhabited since Coast Guard personnel departed that year. The runway remains available for emergency use only, and there are no facilities, fuel or scheduled services on the island. Flying conditions are notably hazardous, with persistently overcast skies, high winds, winter squalls producing gusts in excess of 100 knots, and extensive summer fog over the Bering Sea and North Pacific. Access to Attu Island is restricted.
