Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Balmaceda Airport lies in the Aysén Region of southern Chile, some 55 km south-east of the regional capital Coyhaique and only a few kilometres from the Argentine border. It is the main scheduled air link into Chilean Patagonia, served by a single long asphalt runway at over 1,700 ft elevation, and offers a straightforward VFR and IFR destination for pilots exploring this remote part of the country.
Balmaceda Airport (ICAO: SCBA, IATA: BBA) serves the town of Balmaceda and the wider Aysén Region of southern Chile. It functions as the principal gateway to Coyhaique and the surrounding Patagonian wilderness, handling scheduled airline services from Santiago, Puerto Montt, Punta Arenas and other Chilean cities. For a simulator pilot, its long single runway, tower-controlled airspace and dramatic Patagonian setting close to the Andes and the Argentine border make it a distinctive and worthwhile destination.
The airport sits in the Aysén Region, about 55 km south-east of Coyhaique, the regional capital, and roughly 4 km west of the border with Argentina. The field is a medium-sized airport with a control tower, placing arriving and departing traffic under air traffic control rather than uncontrolled operations.
Balmaceda has a single physical runway, 09/27, measuring 8,203 ft (about 2,500 m) with a hard surface and runway lighting. There is no ILS installed. Field elevation is 1,693 ft.
Balmaceda operates with an air traffic control tower under the callsign Balmaceda. Ground movements are handled on 121.9 MHz (Balmaceda Ground), a radio frequency of 126.9 MHz is also listed, and Tower operates on 118.5 MHz. No ILS is available at the field, so arrivals should be prepared for non-precision or visual approaches.
The airport takes its name from the settlement of Balmaceda. On 8 April 1968 a Douglas C-49K of LADECO, registration CC-CBM, crashed on approach while operating a domestic scheduled flight from Los Cerrillos Airport in Santiago, killing all 36 people aboard. From 2016 the airfield underwent significant works to improve its movement area, including resurfacing of the damaged runway, construction of a new 30 m wide parallel taxiway, a new control tower, apron expansion and improvements to administrative buildings, funded largely through national investment aimed at developing Chile's remote regions. In April 2018 the newly built parallel taxiway was temporarily pressed into service as a second runway, designated 09L/27R, to allow repair works to proceed on the main runway.
Balmaceda continues to operate as a scheduled airline airport, with LATAM Chile and Sky Airline flying to Puerto Montt and Santiago de Chile, Aerovías DAP operating seasonal services to Punta Arenas, and JetSmart Chile running seasonal flights to Concepción, Santiago de Chile and Temuco. The airport has a control tower and passenger-handling facilities to support these scheduled operations.