Departure
92%
vs 95% ▼ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Klawock Airport is a state-owned public-use aerodrome on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska's Panhandle, serving the community of Klawock and, a short drive away, Craig. It offers a single long, lit asphalt runway and scheduled regional air service, making it a useful and scenic stop for VFR pilots exploring Southeast Alaska's island communities.
Klawock Airport is a state-owned, public-use airport on Prince of Wales Island in the Alaska Panhandle, built to serve the city of Klawock and the nearby town of Craig. It is a straightforward single-runway field with a long, lit asphalt strip, and it hosts scheduled air taxi flights linking the island to Ketchikan, Juneau and Sitka, giving a sim pilot a realistic taste of bush-style operations into a remote but well-equipped Alaskan community airport.
The airport lies in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area of Alaska, about two nautical miles northeast of the Klawock central business district, with the town of Craig roughly eight miles to the south; a paved road connects the airport to both communities. Flight following and en-route air traffic services in the area are provided through Anchorage Center, with Ketchikan Flight Service Station handling FSS calls for the region.
Klawock has a single physical runway, 02/20, which is 4,953 feet long with a hard (asphalt) surface and is lit for night operations. There is no ILS at the field.
Pilots can expect an automated weather observation on ASOS at 135.45 MHz. The common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) is 120.9 MHz. Ketchikan Radio, the local Flight Service Station outlet, operates on 122.25 MHz, and Anchorage Center provides en-route control services on 118.5 MHz.
The airport sits about two nautical miles northeast of downtown Klawock, with Craig lying roughly eight miles to the south along a paved road corridor that links the two communities and the airport, making the built-up areas of Klawock and Craig useful visual references when inbound to the field.
Klawock Airport is owned by the State of Alaska and has long served as the public-use airfield for Klawock and the surrounding Prince of Wales Island communities. An administrative quirk sees the airport carry different location identifiers for different systems: the FAA designates it AKW, while IATA assigns it KLW, since the FAA code AKW is used elsewhere internationally. In the 12 months to the end of 2006 the airport recorded around 4,000 aircraft operations, an average of about ten per day, split roughly 83 percent air taxi and 18 percent general aviation, with four single-engine aircraft then based there. On 6 April 2005 a twin-engine Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander operating a scheduled Part 135 passenger flight from Ketchikan suffered a main landing gear failure on landing at Klawock, veering off the runway and striking a drainage ditch; the aircraft was substantially damaged but the pilot and two passengers were uninjured, and investigators traced the failure to an incorrectly specified aluminium alloy landing gear bracket.
Klawock continues to function as the scheduled air link for Klawock and Craig, with Alaska Seaplanes operating flights to Juneau and Sitka and Island Air Express providing service to Ketchikan. The field offers basic passenger facilities, and road access connects it directly to both Klawock and Craig for onward travel.