Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Eareckson Air Station sits on remote Shemya Island at the far western tip of the Aleutian chain, roughly 1,500 miles southwest of Anchorage. Once Shemya Air Force Base, it now functions as a USAF-owned refuelling stop and emergency diversion field, home also to the Cobra Dane early-warning radar. For the simulator pilot it offers one of the most isolated ILS-equipped runways in the world, surrounded by North Pacific weather and wartime history.
Eareckson Air Station is a US Air Force airfield on Shemya, a small island in the Near Islands group at the western end of the Aleutian chain, Alaska. It is not a civilian airport in the ordinary sense: it has been closed as an active Air Force station since 1994 and is now operated for refuelling purposes and as a diversion field for transpacific traffic, while the island itself hosts the Cobra Dane phased-array radar. Its extreme isolation, long ILS-served runway and dramatic North Pacific setting make it a distinctive and unusual destination for a long-range simulated flight.
Shemya lies at the westernmost tip of the Aleutian Islands, near the larger island of Attu, about 1,500 miles southwest of Anchorage. The field sits on the south side of the island, which measures only about two miles by four miles, placing the runway close to the surrounding shoreline on all sides. There are no nearby towns; the only settlement on the island is the station itself.
Eareckson has a single physical runway, 10/28, with each direction just under 9,986 feet long on a hard, lit surface. Runway 28 is equipped with an ILS. Field elevation is 89 feet.
An ASOS is available on 135.65 MHz. Anchorage Center provides area control on 119.1 MHz, and the CTAF is 127.2 MHz. Runway 28 is ILS-equipped, and the island also carries an NDB, TACAN and VOR, though frequencies for these are not given here.
No published circuit or joining procedures are given; pilots should expect to operate under Anchorage Center's control given the field's remoteness and use of the CTAF for local traffic advisories.
There are no published visual reporting points. The island itself, only about two miles by four miles, is the principal visual landmark, with the runway on its south side; abandoned World War II taxiways, aircraft revetments and two disused runways on the west side of the island are visible relics that help identify the field from the air.
Construction of a runway suitable for B-29 Superfortress bombers began on Shemya in 1943 after Alaskan Scouts reconnoitred the then-uninhabited island, with US Army Engineers building a 10,000-foot runway and two 5,000-foot cross runways. During the Second World War the island supported B-24 Liberator, P-40 Warhawk, P-38 Lightning and other units, including Navy PB4Y-2 Privateers, and served as a forward base for Eleventh Air Force operations against Japanese positions in the Kurile Islands following the Aleutian Campaign. The base was renamed Eareckson Air Station on 6 April 1993 in honour of Colonel William O. Eareckson, who commanded Eleventh Air Force's wartime missions against Kiska and Attu and pioneered low-level skip bombing and forward air control techniques. Shemya Island has also experienced major seismic events, including the 1965 Rat Islands earthquake and the 1975 Near Islands earthquake, the latter causing significant damage to runways and hangars. The station closed as an active Air Force base on 1 July 1994.
Eareckson remains owned by the US Air Force and is operated for refuelling purposes, also serving as a diversion airport for civilian aircraft on transpacific routes; it hosts the Cobra Dane radar operated for missile-warning purposes. Notable diversions have included a Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 in December 2018 and a Polar Air Cargo Boeing 747-400F in March 2020, both due to in-flight technical concerns. As a military-controlled installation, prior permission is required before any flight to the field.