Captain Luis Francisco Gómez Niño Air Base ( , also known as Apiay Air Base (''Base Aérea de Apiay''), is a

Colombian military The Military Forces of Colombia () are the unified armed forces of the Republic of Colombia. They consist of the Colombian Army, the Colombian Navy and the Colombian Aerospace Force. The National Police of Colombia, although technically not part ...

base assigned to the

Colombian Aerospace Force The Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC, ) is the air force of the Republic of Colombia. The Colombian Aerospace Force is one of the three institutions of the Military Forces of Colombia charged, according to the 1991 Constitution, with working to exe ...

(''Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana'' or FAC) Combat Air Command No. 2 (''Comando Aéreo de Combate No. 2'' or CACOM 2). It also hosts members of the

Colombian Army The National Army of Colombia () is the land warfare service branch of the Military Forces of Colombia. With over 361,420 active personnel as of 2020, it is the largest and oldest service branch in Colombia, and is the second largest army in the ...

and

Colombian Navy The Colombian Navy, officially the Colombian National Navy (), also known as the ''"Armada Nacional"'' or just the ''"Armada"'' in Spanish, is the naval branch of the Military Forces of Colombia, military forces of Colombia. The Navy is responsi ...

. The base is located in Apiay, near the city of

Villavicencio Villavicencio () is a city and municipality in Colombia. The capital of Meta Department, it was founded on April 6, 1840. The municipality had a population of 531,275 in 2018. The city is located at 4°08'N, 73°40'W, 75 km (about 45 ...

, in the Department of Meta in central

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, by the steps of the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

mountain range and the plains of the Colombian

Llanos The Llanos ( Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, ...

. The base also hosts members of the

United States Military The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

under a cooperation program under

Plan Colombia Plan Colombia was a United States foreign aid, military aid, and diplomatic initiative aimed at combating Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups. The plan was originally conceived in 1999 by the administrations of Colombian Presid ...

intended to help the Colombian military with the eradication of

illegal drug trade The illegal drug trade, drug trafficking, or narcotrafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of drug prohibition, prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibitionism, prohibit trade, exce ...

and the illegally armed groups in the

Colombian armed conflict The Colombian conflict () began on May 27, 1964, and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups, crime syndicates and far-left guerrilla groups fighting each other to increase their i ...

. Apiay has served as base for operations such as Plan Patriota which included operations such as Operation JM.

History

The current Combat Air Command No. 2 (''Comando Aéreo de Combate No. 2'') was established in 1933, in the jungle, with the name San José del Guaviare Air Base (''Base Aérea San José del Guaviare''). In December 1947 it moved to the village of Apiay, from

, to become the Apiay National Airfield (''Aeródromo Nacional de Apiay''), an auxiliary to Madrid Air Base. In 1956 it was equipped with

AT-6 Texan The North American Aviation T-6 Texan is an American single-engined advanced trainer aircraft, which was used to train pilots of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), United States Air Force (USAF), United States Navy, Royal Air Force, Ro ...

and

T-34 Mentor The Beechcraft T-34 Mentor is an American propeller-driven, single-engined, military trainer aircraft derived from the Beechcraft Bonanza, Beechcraft Model 35 Bonanza. The earlier versions of the T-34, dating from around the late 1940s to the ...

aircraft, to provide training to pilots recently graduated from the Military Aviation School (''Escuela Militar de Aviación''). In 1959 the unit was elevated to a main base with the assignment of B-26 aircraft moved from the Palanquero Air Base, changing its name to ''Comando Aéreo de Bombardeo''. In 1961 it received the name Luis F. Gómez Niño Air Base as a tribute to

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Luis F. Gómez Niño (1896-1934), a Colombian military aviator. In 1972, the base receives its first jet aircraft,

T-33 The Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star (or T-Bird) is an American subsonic jet trainer. It was produced by Lockheed and made its first flight in 1948. The T-33 was developed from the Lockheed P-80/F-80 starting as TP-80C/TF-80C in development, then d ...

and T-37, brought from the Combat Air Command No.1, and changes its name to the present day name of Combat Air Command No.2. Today, the air base has responsibility for over 600.000 km²Reseña Histórica: Capitán Luis F. Gómez Niño
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Facilities

The air base resides at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

. It has one

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

designated 10/28 with an

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

surface measuring .

Accidents and incidents

*On 8 September 1969,

Douglas C-47 The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II. During the war the C-47 was used for troo ...

FAC-685 of

SATENA SATENA (Spanish acronym of ''Servicio Aéreo a Territorios Nacionales'') is a Colombian airline based in Bogotá, Colombia. It is majority-owned by the Government of Colombia which operates it to provide connectivity to less connected areas of th ...

crashed near Apiay Air Force Base killing all 32 people on board. The aircraft was operating a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Monterrey Airport to Apiay.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Captain Luis F. Gomez Nino Air Base 1933 establishments in Colombia Airports in Colombia Colombian Air Force bases Buildings and structures in Meta Department Military installations of Colombia Military airbases established in 1933