Santa Maria Agricola Airport

The airport was closed as part of a large-scale Mexican federal and military (SEDENA) operation to combat drug trafficking. Hundreds of private and unregulated airstrips ('pistas clandestinas' or 'narco-pistas') in states like Sinaloa were systematically destroyed to prevent their use by drug cartels for smuggling narcotics, weapons, and cash. The method of destruction typically involved using heavy machinery to dig deep trenches across the runway, rendering it permanently unusable for aircraft.

The airport is permanently closed and no longer exists as an aviation facility. Satellite imagery of the coordinates confirms that the former runway has been completely reclaimed for agricultural use. The land has been plowed over and is now indistinguishable from the surrounding cultivated fields. The physical destruction by military forces and subsequent integration into farmland means there are no remaining structures or markings of the former airstrip.

Santa Maria Agricola Airport was a private agricultural airstrip ('aeródromo agrícola'). Its primary and historical purpose was to support the intensive agricultural industry in the Guasave valley, a major food-producing region in Mexico. Operations consisted almost exclusively of general aviation aircraft, specifically crop dusters ('aviones fumigadores'), used for the aerial application of pesticides, fertilizers, and seeds on vast fields of vegetables and grains. It was one of many such airstrips that were essential for the efficiency and scale of modern agriculture in Sinaloa before the security crackdown.

Effectively zero. There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the airport. The security concerns that led to its closure persist in the region. Furthermore, the physical land has been fully repurposed for agriculture, and the need for such a high density of small, private airstrips has diminished in favor of fewer, more regulated facilities. Re-establishing an airport on this site would require new land acquisition and construction, for which there is no economic or political motivation.