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Airports Only Used During Emergencies

Last week, United Airlines made an emergency landing on Midway, one of several “diversion airports” in the U.S.; here’s the scoop on three more.

© Hemis / Alamy

Midway Atoll

Last weekend, more than 300 United passengers were treated to an unexpected layover on a nearly deserted island in the middle of the Pacific when their plane ran into mechanical trouble on flight from Honolulu to Guam. If that sounds romantic, think again: A video captured a crewmember “welcoming” the travelers with a decidedly dreary sounding recitation of the amenities at their temporary abode:

“Midway is not an island that has hotels and things. It's just a diversion airport. They have gymnasium here that you can all go to if you like and they have chairs and things.”

And that’s where stranded passengers spent the next seven hours, until a replacement craft rescued them the next morning. (United said later that an equipment cooling fan had malfunctioned but was quickly fixed.)

But it wasn’t always that way for Midway, the tiny 2.4 square mile island—literally halfway between North America and Asia—that’s primarily known as the site of a 1942 World War II battle that became a turning point in the war. Before the war, there were hotels and things: Pan Am’s Flying Boats made regular stops there on trips across the Pacific, and tourists had their pick of lodging establishments, including the Pan Am Hotel a.k.a. Gooneyville Lodge, named for the gooney birds (or albatrosses) that populate the island. But after the Naval Base closed in the 1990s, the island was turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the mid-1990s.

What does remain is a 7,800-foot runway that’s fully capable of handling any size aircraft. Emergency landings are rare; before last weekend, the last major visit was in 2011 when a Delta 747 spent 12 hours there after pilots noticed a crack in the windshield. One problem: flight arrivals are limited to nighttime for six months of the year, from October to August, when the albatross are present and are a danger to landing aircraft.

Midway isn’t alone, though; here are some other diversion airports in the Pacific where jets have made emergency landings:

Wake Island

Wake, like Midway, is a WWII site and a wildlife preserve home to about 150 people, most of them U.S. government employees. But while it was a scheduled stop on many transpacific flights until the early 1970s, the island is essentially closed to regular visitors—although military history tours have been known to make brief stops there. In 2011, a Delta 767 made an emergency landing there due to a mechanical issue with an engine.

Shemya Island

Part of the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, the U.S. airfield and radar station was a vital Cold War outpost. In the 1950s, Northwest Airlines leased the island to use as a refueling station on their flights over the north Pacific. Few flights land there now; most recently, an American Airlines 777 made an emergency landing on this treeless piece of tundra in 2010 due to a fire alarm (which ended up being nothing) in the cargo hold.

Cold Bay

Also in the Aleutians, this is a substantial air field with two full-length runways. It gets regular cargo air traffic as well as diverted passenger flights; a Delta 767 landed there last year due to an engine shutdown.

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