 There were many times when the runway was needed for emergency landings for both civil and military aircraft.When the runway was decommissioned, it could no longer be used as a potential emergency landing place when planning flight routes across the Pacific Ocean.As of 2003, the airfield at Johnston Atoll consisted of an unmaintained closed single asphalt/concrete runway 5/23, a parallel taxiway, and a large paved ramp along the southeast side of the runway.