Portsmouth International Airport at Pease , formerly known as Pease International Airport, is a joint civil and military use airport located one

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Tod ...

(2 km) west of the central business district of

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most d ...

, a city in Rockingham County,

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, United States. It is owned by the Pease Development Authority. It is included in the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

(FAA)

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 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a non-hub primary commercial service facility. The airport is located within the Pease International Tradeport, a result of the ongoing redevelopment of the former

Pease Air Force Base Pease, in Middle English, was a noun referring to the vegetable pea; see that article for its etymology. The word survives into modern English in pease pudding. Pease may also refer to: People *Pease family (Darlington), a prominent family in D ...

which was closed under

Base Realignment and Closure Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is a process by a United States federal government commission to increase United States Department of Defense efficiency by coordinating the realignment and closure of military installations following the end ...

(BRAC) Commission action in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Usage

Military

The airport shares its runway with the

Pease Air National Guard Base Pease Air National Guard Base is a New Hampshire Air National Guard base located at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease in New Hampshire. It occupies a portion of what was once Pease Air Force Base, a former Strategic Air Command facility ...

, which is actively utilized by the 157th Air Refueling Wing (157 ARW) of the New Hampshire Air National Guard, an

Air Mobility Command Air Mobility Command (AMC) is a major command (MAJCOM) of the U.S. Air Force. It is headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, east of St. Louis, Missouri. Air Mobility Command was established on 1 June 1992, and was formed from elemen ...

(AMC)-gained

Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...

unit operating

KC-46A Pegasus The Boeing KC-46 Pegasus is an American military aerial refueling and strategic military transport aircraft developed by Boeing from its 767 jet airliner. In February 2011, the tanker was selected by the United States Air Force (USAF) as the ...

aerial refueling Aerial refueling, also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to another (the receiver) while both aircraft a ...

tankers. The

64th Air Refueling Squadron The 64th Air Refueling Squadron is a United States Air Force air-refueling squadron assigned to the 22d Operations Group at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas. As part of the Air Force's Total Force Initiative, the 64th is stationed at Pease Ai ...

(64 ARS), an active duty

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

unit of the

22nd Air Refueling Wing The 22d Air Refueling Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Mobility Command's Eighteenth Air Force. It is stationed at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas and also functions as the host wing for McConnell. Its primary mission ...

(22 ARW) at McConnell AFB, is also embedded and located with the 157 ARW at Pease ANGB. Pease was one of seven Launch Abort Sites and one of 18 Emergency Landing Sites for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...

orbiters.

Civilian

Domestic and international terminal passenger service by the third iteration of

Pan American Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

began in 1999 and lasted until the airline's demise in 2004; other past operators include Business Express / Delta Connection (1993–?), Allegiant Air (2005–2007), and

Skybus Airlines Skybus Airlines Inc. was a privately held airline based in Columbus, Ohio, United States. It operated as an ultra low-cost carrier modeled after the European airline Ryanair, and aimed to be the least expensive airline in the United States. ...

, which operated out of the airport from May 2007 until it ceased operations in April 2008. Allegiant Air returned in October 2013, and offers service to several destinations.

Frontier Airlines Frontier Airlines is a major ultra-low-cost U.S. airline headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It operates flights to over 100 destinations throughout the United States and 31 international destinations, and employs more than 3,000 staff. The ca ...

began offering service to their hub in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

, on December 6, 2018, with hopes of expanding the number of destinations offered in the future. An expanded passenger terminal opened on January 22, 2021, for customers of Allegiant Air. The airport is the current base for

PlaneSense PlaneSense is a fractional aircraft ownership program managed by PlaneSense, Inc. and based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. As of the beginning of 2020, they manage a civilian fleet of 44 total program aircraft, made up of thirty-si ...

, a company that offers fractional aircraft ownership programs.

Facilities and aircraft

Portsmouth International Airport at Pease covers an area of at an elevation of 100 feet (30 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 concrete and

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 ...

paved

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, concrete ...

designated 16/34 which measures 11,322 by 150 feet (3,451 x 46 m). For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2019, the airport had 42,282 aircraft operations, an average of 116 per day: 68%

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 ...

, 10%

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 ...

, 17%

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 4% scheduled commercial. At that time there were 132 aircraft based at this airport: 96 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 ...

, 12 multi-engine, 16 jet, 6

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 attribu ...

and 2

. In May 2019, the Pease Development Authority approved a $24 million runway reconstruction project, which was completed in September 2020.

Airlines and destinations

Accidents at or near PSM

Civilian aircraft incidents at or near the airport, per

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

(NTSB) records: * On April 10, 1993, a

Cessna 172 The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company.

traveling from Greater Binghamton Airport (BGM) in New York to

Beverly Regional Airport Beverly Regional Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located in Beverly, Danvers and Wenham, Massachusetts, in Essex County, three nautical miles (6 km) northwest of Beverly's central business district. The National Plan o ...

(BVY) in Massachusetts diverted to PSM due to low visibility, made several attempts to land, and ultimately crashed in nearby

Durham, New Hampshire Durham is a New England town, town in Strafford County, New Hampshire, Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 15,490 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 14,638 at the 2010 census.United States Censu ...

, after running out of fuel; the pilot was seriously injured. Another pilot had taken off from Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM) in Massachusetts in an attempt to guide the plane to safety. * On October 9, 2004, a Cessna 172M traveling from Bar Harbor Airport (BHB) in Maine to Skyhaven Airport (DAW) in New Hampshire had to land in a corn field in nearby Eliot, Maine, after running out of fuel; neither the pilot or passenger were injured. The pilot had been unable to land at Skyhaven due to low visibility and was en route to PSM when the incident occurred. A number of incidents, some with fatalities, occurred during military use of the facility.

References

External links

Portsmouth International Airport at Pease official website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Portsmouth International Airport At Pease Airports in New Hampshire Buildings and structures in Portsmouth, New Hampshire Transportation buildings and structures in Rockingham County, New Hampshire Newington, New Hampshire