Airports
FAA Ponders Fate of Remote Pacific Island Airfield
Midway Island plays a role in ETOPS flight planning
Henderson Field on Midway Island
With an expensive rehabilitation project looming for Henderson Field (PMDY) on Midway Island, the FAA is weighing the decision of removing it as an ETOPS emergency alternate option for transpacific flights. © Megan Nagel/USFWS

The FAA has extended the deadline for comments from the aviation industry—as well as federal, state, tribal, and local agencies—regarding the importance of Midway Atoll Airport/Henderson Field (PMDY) for transpacific aviation operations until September 22.

Midway Island is best known for being the site of what historians describe as the turning point in the Pacific Theater in World War II, when the U.S. Navy won a major tactical aircraft carrier duel against the Japanese Imperial fleet in 1942. The island remained under U.S. Navy control until the mid-1990s, when it was designated as a National Wildlife Refuge and turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.