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Carajás Airport lies deep in the Amazon interior of Pará state, serving the mining town of Parauapebas and the vast Carajás iron ore complex. Built by the mining company Vale in the early 1980s, it offers a single long, lit asphalt runway with an ILS approach, making it a notable stop for simulator pilots exploring remote Brazilian aviation.
Carajás Airport serves Parauapebas in the state of Pará, Brazil, sitting within the Carajás Mining Complex from which it takes its name. It was built by the mining company Companhia Vale do Rio Doce to support operations at the Carajás Mine and has since grown into a regional gateway handling scheduled airline services alongside mining-related traffic. For a simulator pilot, it is an interesting destination thanks to its isolated Amazonian setting, single long instrument runway, and a history that includes a royal visit and two notable accidents.
The airport is located about 18 km from downtown Parauapebas, in the interior of Pará state in northern Brazil. It sits within the Carajás Mining Complex, a large area of iron ore extraction operated by Vale.
Carajás has a single physical runway, 10/28, measuring 6,551 feet in length with a hard asphalt surface and runway lighting throughout. The 10 approach is equipped with an ILS, giving instrument-rated traffic a precision approach into this remote strip; the 28 end is lit but does not carry an instrument approach.
Aeronautical information lists an AFIS frequency of 131.7 MHz for radio (RDO) communications at Carajás, reflecting the airport's status as an aerodrome flight information service field rather than a full ATC unit. The runway 10 approach is served by an ILS.
Carajás Airport was commissioned on 23 September 1982, having been built by the mining company Companhia Vale do Rio Doce to support the extraction activities of the Carajás Mine, one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world. Infraero operated the airport from 1985 until 2022, when the Spanish-led consortium Aena won a 30-year concession to run it; Aena Brasil formally took over management on 24 November 2023. The airport has recorded two notable accidents: on 8 September 1987 a Brazilian Air Force Hawker Siddeley HS.125 crashed on take-off with the loss of all nine occupants, and on 14 February 1997 a Varig Boeing 737-241 operating flight 265 suffered a collapsed right main gear during a thunderstorm landing, veering off the runway into the forest with one crew fatality. The airport also has the distinction of having received the British royal couple, Charles and Diana, on a visit to the Carajás complex.
Carajás Airport is now operated by Aena Brasil, part of the Spanish Aena group, following its 2022 concession win and formal takeover in November 2023. It functions primarily as the air gateway for the Carajás Iron Mine Complex, carrying a growing number of passengers connected to mineral exploration in the region alongside scheduled airline services to destinations such as Belém and Belo Horizonte-Confins. Simulator pilots should note that the field is AFIS-serviced rather than fully controlled, and its single ILS-equipped runway makes it usable in a range of weather conditions typical of the Amazon interior.