Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Akutan Airport (PAUT) is a small state-owned public-use airfield on Akun Island in the Aleutians East Borough of Alaska, built to serve the fishing community of Akutan after amphibious Grumman Goose service to the town's seaplane base was withdrawn. It offers a single hard-surfaced runway amid steep, remote Aleutian terrain, with onward travel to Akutan itself provided by helicopter rather than by road.
Akutan Airport is a state-owned, public-use airfield on Akun Island, built specifically to give the remote fishing community of Akutan a land-based air link after the retirement of the amphibious Grumman Goose aircraft that had previously served the town's harbour. It is a single-runway field with no instrument landing system, flown into today mainly by scheduled Essential Air Service operators and helicopters. For a simulator pilot it is a striking example of a remote, weather-exposed Alaskan bush airfield, set on a mostly flat, uninhabited island beside the dramatic, volcano-dominated scenery of neighbouring Akutan Island.
The airport lies on Akun Island, about 6 miles (10 km) east of Akutan Island and roughly 40 miles northeast of Unalaska, in the Aleutians East Borough of Alaska. It is a remote outstation with no air traffic control tower; SkyVector lists the field as using a common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) for self-announced traffic procedures rather than a staffed ATC service.
The airport has one physical runway, 09/27, measuring 4,493 feet and hard-surfaced. There is no ILS or other instrument approach equipment associated with the field.
No air traffic control or flight service frequencies are published for Akutan Airport; pilots operate on the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF). According to SkyVector, the medium-intensity runway lighting (MIRL) on runway 09/27 is pilot-activated via the CTAF. No navaids or instrument approach procedures are associated with the field.
No published circuit heights or joining procedures are available for this field. Pilots should be aware that the airport sits on a small, low island in the Aleutians surrounded by steep terrain and open water, and that PND Engineers, the airport's design-build engineer, has described the site itself as physically and logistically complex because of the surrounding terrain and exposed coastal location.
Akun Island, on which the airport sits, is described as relatively flat and largely uninhabited apart from airport staff and a herd of feral cattle, making the runway and its support buildings the dominant features on the island. To the west across Akutan Bay lies the much more prominent Akutan Island, dominated by the 4,275-foot stratovolcano Mount Akutan, which last erupted in 1992 and serves as a striking landmark for pilots approaching from that direction.
For decades Akutan's only air service was an aging World War II-era amphibious Grumman Goose, restricted to visual flight rules, which had to land in the harbour and taxi ashore up a ramp in town; this made flights frequently unreliable, and community officials began planning a replacement airport as early as 1999. After about a decade of studies and assessments, construction of the Akutan Airport Construction Project on Akun Island began in March 2010, built by Kiewit Infrastructure West Company within a federal budget of around 54 million dollars, with PND Engineers providing multidisciplinary design and construction inspection services on what became an award-winning design-build project. A companion harbour and hovercraft facility were built on Akutan Island itself by Knik Construction Company. The new airport opened in 2012, at which point PenAir retired its Grumman Goose fleet and ended seaplane operations to the old Akutan Seaplane Base. The link between the new airport on Akun Island and the town of Akutan was originally provided by hovercraft, but this was later replaced by a helicopter shuttle operated by Maritime Helicopters.
Akutan Airport is served by Grant Aviation under the Essential Air Service program, connecting the field to Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, while Maritime Helicopters provides the onward shuttle link to Akutan Seaplane Base on Akutan Island itself, since there is no road connection between the two islands. The field has no control tower and relies on CTAF procedures for arriving and departing traffic. As part of the original construction project a hangar and associated support facilities were built alongside the runway to serve ongoing operations.