Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City is a United States Coast Guard Air Station co-located at

Elizabeth City Regional Airport Elizabeth City Regional Airport is a joint civil-military public and military use airport located three nautical miles (6 km) southeast of the central business district of Elizabeth City, in Pasquotank County, North Carolina, United S ...

in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, along the Pasquotank River near the opening of the Albemarle Sound. The base has a garrison of approximately 855 officers and enlisted. The Coast Guard air station is also one of the busiest in the U.S. Coast Guard, operating missions as far away as Greenland, the Azores and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

Operations and Missions

Coast Guard Air Station (CGAS) Elizabeth City is one of several commands located on the campus of the Coast Guard Base Elizabeth City. The base complex houses the Aviation Technical Training Center (ATTC) (a headquarters level command which trains

enlisted Enlisted may refer to: * Enlisted rank An enlisted rank (also known as an enlisted grade or enlisted rate) is, in some armed services, any rank below that of a commissioned officer. The term can be inclusive of non-commissioned officers or ...

Coast Guardsmen in aviation ratings in ''"A" Schools'' and advanced ''"C" Schools''), the Aviation Logistics Center (ALC) and Station Elizabeth City, the small boat search and rescue station. Base Elizabeth City also provides military healthcare including sick call, physicals, and dental at the on-board clinic, as well as emergency services with a staffed 24 hours a day Fire and Police Department (ambulance service is provided by local EMS). Base Fire & Police Departments, staffed by a mix of civilian GS positions and active duty members, frequently respond to off-base emergencies supporting local agencies on various types of incidents. The missions of CGAS Elizabeth City include

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

(SAR),

Maritime Law enforcement Admiralty law or maritime law is a body of law that governs nautical issues and private maritime disputes. Admiralty law consists of both domestic law on maritime activities, and private international law governing the relationships between priva ...

International Ice Patrol The International Ice Patrol is an organization with the purpose of monitoring the presence of icebergs in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans and reporting their movements for safety purposes. It is operated by United States Coast Guard but is fund ...

, aids to navigation support (such as operating

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

s), and marine environmental protection (such as responding to

oil spill An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...

s). Currently, CGAS Elizabeth City maintains and operates five HC-130J Hercules aircraft and four MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters.

History

CGAS Elizabeth City was commissioned on August 15, 1940, with four officers, 52 enlisted men and ten aircraft including three Hall PH-2 seaplanes, four Fairchild J2K landplanes, and three

Grumman J2F Duck The Grumman J2F Duck (company designation G-15) is an American single-engine amphibious biplane. It was used by each major branch of the U.S. armed forces from the mid-1930s until just after World War II, primarily for utility and air-sea resc ...

amphibious aircraft An amphibious aircraft or amphibian is an aircraft (typically fixed-wing) that can take off and land on both solid ground and water, though amphibious helicopters do exist as well. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are seaplanes ( flying boats ...

. It is located sixty miles north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, north of Albemarle Sound and along the East Coast's northernmost ice-free river. Bayside Plantation, owned by the Hollowell family, near Elizabeth City, North Carolina, was selected by the United States Coast Guard in 1938 for its potential strategic value as a seaplane base. During World War II, the air station was under United States Navy control conducting Search and Rescue (SAR), Anti-submarine warfare, and training missions in tandem with

Naval Air Station Weeksville The Weeksville Dirigible Hangar (former Naval Air Station Weeksville) is an airship manufacturing, storage and test facility originally built by the United States Navy in 1941 for servicing airships conducting anti-submarine patrols of the US coast ...

, a lighter-than-air airship facility approximately two miles to the southeast that was in operation from 1941 to 1957. Since then, the AIRSTA Elizabeth City's missions and assigned aircraft have shifted and grown with changing national priorities and technologies. In 1966 Air Station Elizabeth City expanded after absorbing the coast guard air stations at

Kindley AFB Kindley Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base in Bermuda from 1948–1970, having been operated from 1943 to 1948 by the United States Army Air Forces as ''Kindley Field''. History World War II Prior to American entry into th ...

, Bermuda and

NAS Argentia Naval Station Argentia is a former base of the United States Navy that operated from 1941 to 1994. It was established in the community of Argentia in what was then the Dominion of Newfoundland, which later became the tenth Canadian province, ...

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

.CGAS Elizabeth City History http://www.uscg.mil/d5/airstation/ecity/history.html

Popular Culture

Air Station Elizabeth City was the setting (and used as a double for Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Alaska) in the 2006 film '' The Guardian.'' Base personnel were instrumental in providing the infrastructure and support necessary to the filming of the motion picture. In 2018, the Air Station provided a helicopter and flight crew to assist in the filming of the reboot Jack Ryan series on Amazon Prime. Four crew members including two pilots were featured in the pilot episode, with two members having speaking roles. In the episode, the HH60J Jayhawk helicopter lands in the back yard of a dinner party, with an Aviation Survival Technician and

Aviation Maintenance Technician Aviation Maintenance Technicians (AMT) are an enlisted rating of the United States Coast Guard. They inspect, service, maintain, troubleshoot and repair aircraft engines, auxiliary power units, propellers, rotor systems, power train systems, an ...

exiting the aircraft to search for the main character.

Geographic location

Support Center Elizabeth City is located at .CGAS Elizabeth City Info, http://www.uscg.mil/d5/airstation/ecity/info.html

Notes and references

External links

CGAS Elizabeth City official site
{{NCMilitary, state=collapsed Buildings and structures in Pasquotank County, North Carolina United States Coast Guard Air Stations United States Coast Guard Aviation 1940 establishments in North Carolina