Auburn-Lewiston Airport is a public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

Androscoggin County Androscoggin County (French: ''Comté d'Androscoggin'') is a county in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 111,139. Its county seat is Auburn and its largest city is Lewiston. Androscoggin County com ...

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and nor ...

, opened in 1935. It is five miles southwest of the cities of Auburn and Lewiston, both of which own and operate the airport, though it is in the Auburn city limits. The airport is not served by any commercial airline, but is served by several charter airlines. The airport was the site of a Bar Harbor Airlines accident that killed "America's Youngest Ambassador" Samantha Smith.

Lewiston NAAF

From late 1942, during World War II, the airfield was under the control of the United States Navy for use as a base for anti-submarine patrols by Squadron

VS-31 Sea Control Squadron 31 (VS-31) ''Topcats'' was a United States Navy anti-submarine warfare squadron. During WWII there was a scouting squadron which carried the designation VS-31. It was established as Scouting Squadron 31 in 1942, based at Nava ...

. It was commissioned on 15 April 1943 as Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Lewiston, and used along with

Naval Air Station Brunswick Naval Air Station Brunswick , also known as NAS Brunswick, was a military airport located southeast of Brunswick, Maine, with a number of Navy-operated maritime patrol aircraft. As of November 28, 2009, the last aircraft ( P-3 Orions) left. The ...

to train British and American

torpedo bomber A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carrying the weight ...

pilots until 1945. Naval operations ceased on 1 December 1945, and the site was declared surplus in 1946 and handed back to the cities of Auburn and Lewiston in 1947/8.

Facilities and aircraft

Auburn-Lewiston Airport covers at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic 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 surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

of 288 feet (88 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has two

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

s: 4/22 is 5,001 by 100 feet (1,524 x 30 m) and 17/35 is 2,750 by 75 feet (838 x 23 m). In the year ending May 1, 2008 the airport had 74,180 aircraft operations, average 203 per day: 64%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

, 36%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) ...

, and <1%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. 120 aircraft were then based at this airport: 75% single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

, 14% multi-engine, 1% jet, 3%

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

and 6%

ultralight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with aile ...

Incidents and accidents

On August 25, 1985, Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 carrying 8 passengers (6 passengers, 2 crew) was attempting to land at the airport when it crashed 500 feet to the right of the airport's runway center line, killing all passengers and crew. It was determined that the crash was due to a mixture of weather conditions, incorrect altimeter settings, and pilot error. The accident attracted unusual public attention due to one of the passengers, Samantha Smith, a 13 year old peace activist from Houlton, Maine,

References

External links

Aerial image as of 7 June 1997
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to pro ...

'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Auburn Lewiston Municipal Airport Airports in Androscoggin County, Maine Buildings and structures in Auburn, Maine Lewiston–Auburn, Maine Former Essential Air Service airports

Lewiston NAAF

Facilities and aircraft

Incidents and accidents

See also

References

External links