Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City

Coordinates: 36°15′27″N 76°11′00″W / 36.25750°N 76.18333°W / 36.25750; -76.18333

Air Station Elizabeth City
Unit Patch CGAS Elizabeth City
Active August 1940 -present
Country  United States
Branch  United States Navy
Type Air Station
Role Search and rescue, maritime patrol
Aircraft flown
Helicopter MH-60T Jayhawk
Patrol HC-130J Hercules

Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City is a United States Coast Guard Air Station co-located at Elizabeth City Regional Airport in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, along the Pasquotank River near the opening of the Albemarle Sound. It is the largest [1] and busiest Coast Guard air station in the U.S., operating missions as far away as Greenland, the Azores and the Caribbean.[2]

Operations and Missions

Coast Guard Air Station (CGAS) Elizabeth City is located on the campus of the Coast Guard's Base Elizabeth City. and is one of several commands located on the Coast Guard's premier Base Elizabeth City. In addition, the Base Elizabeth City complex houses the Aviation Technical Training Center (ATTC) (a headquarters level command which trains enlisted Coast Guardsmen in aviation ratings in "A" Schools and advanced "C" Schools), the Aviation Logistics Center (ALC) and Station Elizabeth City, the small boat search and rescue station. Base Elizabeth City also provides military healthcare including sick call, physicals, and dental at the on-board clinic, as well as emergency services with a staffed 24 hours a day Fire and Police Department (ambulance service is provided by local EMS).

The missions of CGAS Elizabeth City include search and rescue (SAR), Maritime Law enforcement, International Ice Patrol, aids to navigation support (such as operating lighthouses), and marine environmental protection (such as responding to oil spills).[2]

Currently, CGAS Elizabeth City maintains and operates five HC-130J Hercules aircraft and four MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters.

History

Floatplanes at CGAS Elizabeth City in March 1942.
Elizabeth City Aviation Technical Training Center
Lockheed HC-130B Hercules of CGAS Elizabeth City in 1971

CGAS Elizabeth City was commissioned on August 15, 1940, with four officers, 52 enlisted men and ten aircraft including three Hall PH-2 seaplanes, four Fairchild J2K landplanes, and three Grumman J2F Duck amphibious aircraft. Located sixty miles north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, north of Albemarle Sound and along the East Coast's northern most ice-free river, the old Holowell Plantation near Elizabeth City, North Carolina, was selected by the United States Coast Guard in 1938 for its potential strategic value as a seaplane base.

During World War II, the air station was under United States Navy control conducting Search and Rescue (SAR), Anti-submarine warfare, and training missions in tandem with Naval Air Station Weeksville, a lighter-than-air airship facility approximately two miles to the southeast that was in operation from 1941 to 1957.[3][4]

Since then, the AIRSTA Elizabeth City's missions and assigned aircraft have shifted and grown with changing national priorities and technologies. In 1966 Air Station Elizabeth City expanded after absorbing the coast guard air stations at Kindley AFB, Bermuda and NAS Argentia, Newfoundland.[5]

Air Station Elizabeth City was the setting (and used as a double for Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Alaska) in the 2006 film The Guardian. Base personnel were instrumental in providing the infrastructure and support necessary to the filming of the motion picture.

In 2018, the Air Station provided a helicopter and flight crew to assist in the filming of the reboot Jack Ryan series on Amazon Prime, with two members having speaking rolls in the pilot episode as the crew is assigned to pick up the main character during a dinner party in Washington, DC.

Geographic location

Support Center Elizabeth City is located at 36°15′38″N 76°10′29″W / 36.26056°N 76.17472°W / 36.26056; -76.17472.[6]

Notes and references

  1. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-07-23. Retrieved 2013-07-18.
  2. 1 2 "Air Station Elizabeth City, NC: Operations and Missions". United States Coast Guard web site. Retrieved 2006-12-16.
  3. ↑ Price, Jay (March 25, 2018). "North Carolina Town Accepts, Then Spurns Russian Gift". Weekend Edition Sunday. NPR. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  4. ↑ Price, Mark (February 28, 2018). "Small NC town tells Russia it won't play host to 25-ton Russian war monument". Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  5. ↑ CGAS Elizabeth City History http://www.uscg.mil/d5/airstation/ecity/history.html%5Bdead+link%5D
  6. ↑ CGAS Elizabeth City Info, http://www.uscg.mil/d5/airstation/ecity/info.html%5Bdead+link%5D

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