Antonio Rivera Rodríguez Airport is a public airport on the island of

Vieques Vieques (; ), officially Isla de Vieques, is an island and municipality of Puerto Rico, in the northeastern Caribbean, part of an island grouping sometimes known as the Spanish Virgin Islands. Vieques is part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ...

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 ...

. Because a large amount of Vieques's yearly revenue comes from the tourism industry, this airport plays an important part in the Vieques economy. For decades, the airport has been the hub of

Vieques Air Link Vieques Air Link (VAL, IATA code:V4) is a small Puerto Rico-based airline that links Vieques with Culebra and mainland Puerto Rico. History Operations began during 1965, with owner Osvaldo "Val" Gonzalez-Duriex piloting a plane with three ...

, and also a destination for a number of small airlines. It 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 primary commercial service airport (more than 10,000 enplanements per year).

History

When anti-military demonstrators started flocking into Vieques in 1999, Vieques Airport saw a considerable increase to its normal yearly average of passengers. In addition, many celebrities who travelled from all over

and the rest of

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

to join the protesters arrived at Vieques through this airport. When

Carla Tricoli Carla Tricoli Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican model, schoolteacher and actress who was Miss Puerto Rico Universe 2003. As a child, Tricoli enjoyed music and she played the cuatro,https://www.santabanta.com/contestants.asp?picid=474 an instrument t ...

, a Vieques native, won the 2002

Miss Puerto Rico Miss Puerto Rico is a national beauty pageant in Puerto Rico. Currently, there are two separate televised pageants held annually: Miss Universe Puerto Rico to select the representative for Miss Universe and Miss Mundo de Puerto Rico to select t ...

contest, her first flight as a beauty queen landed at Vieques Airport. The airport does not accept

jet aircraft A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by jet engines. Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, je ...

, but several international flights operate from it. Most of the commercial aviation operations are domestic flights such as to

Ceiba ''Ceiba'' is a genus of trees in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas (from Mexico and the Caribbean to N Argentina) and tropical West Africa. Some species can grow to tall or more, with a straight, la ...

, to

Isla Grande Airport Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport , also commonly known as Isla Grande Airport, is an airport in Isla Grande, a district in the municipality of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is owned by the Puerto Rico Ports Authority and is adjacent to the Pu ...

in San Juan, and to

Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport ( es, link=no, Aeropuerto Internacional Luis Muñoz Marín) is a joint civil-military international airport located in suburban Carolina, Puerto Rico, southeast of San Juan. It is named for Luis Muño ...

in Carolina, a suburb of

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to: Places Argentina * San Juan Province, Argentina * San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province * San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province * San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...

Air ambulance Air medical services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air transportation, aeroplane or helicopter, to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes. Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and cri ...

flights to San Juan are also available. Early in 2005, plans were announced to expand the airport's runway, so that the airport could accept flights by smaller jets. This would be done in preparation for

American Eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

to start operations to the airport on behalf of

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

via a

code sharing In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

agreement. The airline was expected to start flights to Vieques from San Juan's Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in early 2010; however, American Eagle decided not to begin service and then subsequently ceased all code sharing flights on behalf of American in the Caribbean.

Facilities

Antonio Rivera Rodríguez Airport covers an area of 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 § Vert ...

of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one runway designated 9/27 with an asphalt surface measuring .

Airlines and destinations

Scheduled passenger service is provided by the following airlines:

Statistics

Accidents and incidents

* On December 19, 1977, a

Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander The Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander is a British light utility aircraft and regional airliner designed and originally manufactured by Britten-Norman of the United Kingdom. Still in production, the Islander is one of the best-selling commercial air ...

operated by

en route from

St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...

ditched off of Vieques due to fuel exhaustion. Five passengers of the 10 on board were killed. * A Beechcraft A100 King Air which belonged to Padosa Productions-a musical label to which boy band Menudo belonged-crashed with 11 people on board, 2 crew members and nine passengers, on Wednesday, August 17, 1983. The plane was on a flight from Alexander Hamilton International Airport in

, U.S. Virgin Islands to Isla Verde International Airport in San Juan, with a stop-over at Vieques, when it confronted lifting problems on take-off from Vieques to San Juan, hitting citrus trees before it was able to stop. While there were no injuries reported, the airplane suffered substantial damage. It is unknown whether band director

Edgardo Diaz Edgardo is an Italian-language form of the name Edgar. It may refer to: *Edgardo Abdala (born 1978), Chilean-Palestinian football midfielder *Edgardo Adinolfi (born 1974), Uruguayan football player *Edgardo Alfonzo (born 1973), former Major League ...

or any of the band's members at the time (

Johnny Lozada Johnny Lozada Correa (born December 21, 1967 in Caguas, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican singer, actor, host, and television personality. Lozada was a member of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo during its golden years, joining the group in 1980 and ...

Ricky Melendez Ricky may refer to: Places *Říčky (Brno-Country District), a village and municipality in the Czech Republic *Říčky v Orlických horách, a village in the north of the Czech Republic *Rickmansworth, a town in England sometimes called "Ricky" ...

Charlie Masso Carlos Javier Rivera Masso (born June 13, 1969 in San Juan, Puerto Rico), better known as Charlie Masso, is a Puerto Rican singer and actor. Masso is a former member of Menudo, joining the band at the height of Menudo's worldwide fame. He rep ...

Ray Reyes Ray Reyes León (March 13, 1970 – April 30, 2021) was a Puerto Rican singer who was a member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. Career He was born in New York City and was raised in Levittown, a neighborhood in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. He b ...

and

Roy Rossello Roy is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origin. In Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman England, the name derived from the Norman language, Norman ''roy'', meaning "king", while its Old French cognate, ''rey'' or ''roy'' ...

) were in the plane when it crashed. *

Vieques Air Link Flight 901A Vieques Air Link Flight 901A was a flight from Vieques Airport in Vieques, Puerto Rico, to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands that crashed on August 2, 1984, killing all nine passengers and crew on board. Crash The flight was operated by a ...

– On August 2, 1984, a

BN-2 Islander The Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander is a British light utility aircraft and regional airliner designed and originally manufactured by Britten-Norman of the United Kingdom. Still in production, the Islander is one of the best-selling commercial airc ...

of Vieques Air Link crashed after take-off, killing all nine passengers and crew.

References

External links

* *
Antonio Rivera Rodriguez Airport
{{DEFAULTSORT:Antonio Rivera Rodriguez Airport Vieques, Puerto Rico Airports in Puerto Rico