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Tatitlek Airport (PAKA) is a small gravel-village airstrip serving the remote Alutiiq community of Tatitlek on Prince William Sound in southern Alaska. With a single lit runway and no instrument approach, it is a classic Alaskan bush-flying destination, reachable only by air or water and set against the dramatic backdrop of the Chugach Mountains.
Tatitlek Airport serves the small coastal village of Tatitlek, an Alutiiq community of fewer than 100 people on the shores of Prince William Sound in south-central Alaska. The airfield exists to keep this isolated settlement connected to the wider world, and for the visiting simulator pilot it offers a genuine bush-flying experience: a short, single hard-surfaced runway tucked between mountains and water, with no instrument approach and no control tower.
Tatitlek lies within uncontrolled Class G airspace typical of this part of coastal Alaska, in the Prince William Sound region of the Chugach Census Area. The village sits on the northeast shore of the Tatitlek Narrows, on a narrow, relatively flat strip of land between Galena Bay and Boulder Bay, within the Chugach National Forest. It lies about two miles southeast of the former mining settlement of Ellamar, roughly 25 miles southeast of Valdez, and about 40 miles northwest of Cordova. The Chugach Mountains rise as an impassable range immediately to the north, with a lower ridge running parallel to the Narrows.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 13/31, 3696 feet long on the 13 heading and 3695 feet on the reciprocal 31 heading, with a hard surface and runway lighting on both directions. There is no ILS or other instrument approach.
The village of Tatitlek and its airstrip sit on the flat shoreline strip between Galena Bay and Boulder Bay, on the Tatitlek Narrows within Prince William Sound, making the shoreline and narrows a clear leading line for arriving traffic. The Chugach Mountains dominate the skyline immediately to the north, forming an unmistakable backdrop, while the former mining village of Ellamar lies a short distance to the northwest as a further landmark along the coast.
Tatitlek is a traditional Alutiiq coastal village, mentioned in Russian American Company records as early as 1847, though the settlement has moved location more than once since then; an 1858 census of the Kenai Parish recorded a population of 39 living on a nearby cape. The village first appeared in the United States census in 1880 and has been recorded, under various spellings, in every census since, becoming a designated census place in 1980. Tatitlek is closely associated with the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, being the village nearest to the disaster, which severely affected the fishing resources on which the community depended. The former mining settlement of Ellamar, within the present-day village boundaries, also appears in historical census records from the early twentieth century.
Tatitlek remains a small, remote community served by its village airstrip, which provides the primary air link for a population of around 90 people. The settlement retains its Alutiiq cultural identity, with a single community school and strong ties to subsistence fishing and traditional heritage. No specific information on fuel availability, operating hours or prior-permission requirements is available, and pilots planning a visit should treat it as an uncontrolled, remote strip typical of coastal Alaska.
