Ras Mishab Airport is a small military airfield in the naval complex of Ras Mishab on the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

about northwest of

Jubail Jubail ( ar, الجبيل, ''Al Jubayl'') is a city in the Eastern province on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, with a total population of 684,531 as of 2021. It is home to the largest industrial city in the world. It is also home to th ...

in the Eastern Province of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. It occupies an area of around and is from the shore.

Facilities

The airfield has one runway, long and wide, with lights and ILS support. Several zones allocated near the runway for aircraft parking.

Incidents and use

The naval facility was used during the 1990

Gulf war The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

by the

US Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

. A Royal Saudi Air Force

C-130 The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally desig ...

Hercules crashed during approach to the airport during the same war. The plane crashed in the dark and fog at 4:45 a.m. on 21 March 1991. U.S. Marines on guard duty from

Battalion Landing Team A Marine expeditionary unit (MEU, pronounced as one syllable "" IPA: ) is the smallest air-ground task force (MAGTF) in the United States Fleet Marine Force.Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...

. The official assessment of the probable cause of the crash was the thick black smoke from hundreds of burning oil wells nearby in Kuwait, which combined with the dark and fog obscured the flight crew's visibility. 92 Senegalese and 6 Saudis died in the crash. Three survivors were pulled from the wreckage by Navy Corpsmen, one of which later succumbed to his injuries. The remaining two were stabilized and transported to hospital. Also the Saudi pilots were not rated for instrument landings, and the control tower personnel had neglected to turn on the inclement weather beacons lining the runway. That evening, after the weather had cleared, the control tower personnel turned the beacons on. Airports in Saudi Arabia {{SaudiArabia-airport-stub