Antonio (Nery) Juarbe Pol Airport is a public use airport located southeast of Arecibo,

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

. It is owned by the Puerto Rico Ports Authority. This airport is included in the

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...

for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a

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 ...

airport. The IATA and FAA airport codes differ because IATA had already assigned the "ABO" code to

Aboisso Airport Aboisso Airport is an airport serving Aboisso in the Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the ...

Côte d'Ivoire Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre ...

History

World War II

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the airport was used by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Sixth Air Force Sixth is the ordinal form of the number six. * The Sixth Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution * A keg of beer, equal to 5 U.S. gallons or barrel * The fraction Music * Sixth interval (music)s: ** major sixth, a musical interval ** minor s ...

conducting antisubmarine patrols. It was known as Arecibo Field. Flying units using the airfield were: *

32d Fighter Squadron The ROMP is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessor designed by IBM in the late 1970s. It is also known as the Research OPD Miniprocessor (after the two IBM divisions that collaborated on its inception, IBM Research and the O ...

( 36th Fighter Group) 11 December 1941 – 19 February 1942; 19 February – 9 March 1942 (

P-36 Hawk The Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, is an American-designed and built fighter aircraft of the 1930s and 40s. A contemporary of the Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 109, it was one of the first of a new generation ...

) *

23rd Fighter Squadron The 23d Fighter Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 52d Operations Group and stationed at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. It was inactivated on 13 August 2010. History World War II The 23d Fighter S ...

( 36th Fighter Group), 11 March – 16 May 1943 ( P-39 Airacobra) Maurer, Maurer (1969), Combat Squadrons of the Air Force, World War II, Air Force Historical Studies Office, Maxwell AFB, Alabama.

Name

The airport was named after a prominent Arecibo-born businessman and pilot, who perished along with his wife and two passengers, on a flight from Isla Grande airport in San Juan to Arecibo on Mother's day, 1979. His wife's body was recovered the next day being picked up by fishermen from La Perla in San Juan. His body, the two other passengers, and the aircraft (a

Cessna Cessna () is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing ...

) were recovered from the sea on Father's day 1979. They were visiting his parents in San Juan for Mother's day. The weather was particularly rough that evening and is believed to be the cause of the accident.

Facilities and aircraft

Antonio Nery Juarbe Pol Airport covers an area of 178

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

s (72 ha) 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 23 feet (7 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 '' ...

. It has one runway designated 8/26 with an asphalt surface measuring 3,975 by 60 feet (1,212 × 18 m). Antonio (Nery) Juarbe Pol Airport has a large number of

light-sport aircraft A light-sport aircraft (LSA), or light sport aircraft, is a fairly new category of small, lightweight aircraft that are simple to fly. LSAs tend to be heavier and more sophisticated than ultralight (aka "microlight") aircraft, but LSA restricti ...

and ultralights. It has become the main center of Sport Aviation in Puerto Rico. The airport is very popular with

skydiving Parachuting, including also skydiving, is a method of transiting from a high point in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere to the surface of Earth with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachut ...

community, with a private skydiving school located there.

References

External links