Tinian International Airport

Tinian International Airport (IATA: TIQ, ICAO: PGWT, FAA LID: TNI), also known as West Tinian Airport, is a public airport located on Tinian Island in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. This airport is owned by Commonwealth Ports Authority.

Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Tinian International Airport is assigned TNI by the FAA and TIQ by the IATA (which assigned TNI to Satna, India). The airport's ICAO identifier is PGWT

Facilities and aircraft

Tinian International Airport covers an area of 1,416 acres (573 ha) which contains one paved runway (8/26) measuring 8,600 x 150 ft (2,621 x 46 m).

For 12-month period ending 31 March 2006 the airport had 17,829 aircraft operations, an average of 48 per day: 84% air taxi, 16% general aviation and <1% military.

Tinian, with its sister islands of the Marianas, had passed through Spanish and German hands prior to becoming a Protectorate of Japan following World War I. Under Japanese administration, Tinian was largely a sugar plantation. The island had three good airfields with a fourth under construction by the Japanese in 1944. Tinian International Airport originated as one of these airfields, having two parallel runways.

By mid-1944, the Americans had advanced inside the Japanese ring of defense in the Pacific Theater. On Tinian, the United States Army Air Forces could establish bases to conduct long-range strategic offensive air operations over the Japanese Home Islands with the new B-29 Superfortress, Assaulted on July 24, 1944 by United States Marines from Saipan, which had just been taken the previous month. After a fierce bombardment, the 4th Marine division landed. The Japanese were taken by surprise, and the offensive was regarded as one of the best-executed amphibious operation of the war.

Once under American control, a massive construction project was begun on the island, and the Japanese airfield was repaired and expanded, being named as West Field, or Gurguan Point Airfield due to its geographical location. West Field became operationally ready in the early spring of 1945, and the Twentieth Air Force XXI Bomber Command 58th Bombardment Wing was assigned to the field, being reassigned from Hijli Base Area, India.