Sioux Gateway Airport
Encyclopedia
History
The construction of Sioux City Army Air Base began in March 1942, about three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Opened on 5 July 1942, it became a major training center during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
for crew members of B-24 Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses. With the end of World War II, the former training base switched to becoming a processing center to discharge personnel out of the service and back into civilian life.
With its mission completed, Sioux City Army Air Base closed in December 1945. However, the facility would not remain closed for long, as in September 1946 the airfield was opened by the Air Force Reserve. Sioux City Air Base was one of the first Air Force Reserve bases established after the war, and in December 1946 the 185th Iowa Air National Guard unit was established at Sioux City. Assigned to the new Air Defense Command (ADC) upon reactivation, the 140th Army Air Force base unit was activated as its host unit. The mission of the 140th AFBU was to offer flight and ground training to all commissioned and enlisted members of the Air Force Reserve residing in Iowa, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
.
However, by the mid-1960s ADC was reducing its forces, and on 1 April 1966 the 31st AD was reassigned and the airport was turned over to the Air Force Reserve and Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
Air National Guard
Air National Guard
The Air National Guard , often referred to as the Air Guard, is the air force militia organized by each of the fifty U.S. states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia of the United States. Established under Title 10 and...
for limited military use.
Accidents and incidents
- July 19, 1989, a United AirlinesUnited AirlinesUnited Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees (which includes the entire holding company United Continental...
DC-10, on a flight from Denver to Philadelphia via ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, crashed at Sioux Gateway Airport while attempting an emergency landing. 111 passengers and 1 crew member were killed, while 174 passengers and 10 crew members survived. The accident was one of the most famous aviation disasters in American history, due to the skill of the crew in saving most of the occupants, and because the crash and rescue operation were captured on videotape by a news crew. - December 20, 1983, Ozark Airlines flight 650 McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31. The aircraft left Sioux City and struck a snow plow while landing on runway 03 at Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The aircraft struck the snow plow with its right wing, immediately killing the snow plow operator and causing the plane to swerve off the runway. The probable cause was inadequate control tower service. All airplane passengers and crew survived.
-December 27, 1968. Ozark Airlines flight 982 McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15. Crashed while taking off from runway 35 at Sioux Gateway Airport en route to Chicago O' Hare. The plane was inadequately deiced, causing it to have no control after takeoff. The plane rolled violently 90 degrees to the right causing the wing to strike the ground. The plane came to rest 1181 feet past the runway end. No fatalities.
-January 31, 1944. United States Army Air Force Douglas C-39 en route to Saint Joseph Missouri caught fire shortly after takeoff and crashed and burned. All 3 of the crew members died.
-March 2, 1951. Mid-Continent Airlines Douglas DC-3 crashed 500 feet short of runway 17 while attempting to land in a snowstorm. The probable cause of the crash was a stall at low altitude while turning to line up on the runway. 16 of the plane's 25 occupants were killed in the crash.
See also
- Iowa World War II Army AirfieldsIowa World War II Army AirfieldsDuring World War II, the United States Army Air Force established numerous airfields in Iowa for training pilots and aircrews of USAAF fighters and bombers....
External links
- Sioux Gateway Airport (official site)
- JetSun Aviation Centre (fixed base operatorFixed base operatorA Fixed-base operator or commonly abbreviated FBO is a term developed in the United States after the passage of the Air Commerce Act of 1926...
) - Sioux Gateway Airport (GlobalSecurity.org)
- 185th Refueling Wing (GlobalSecurity.org)