Chinobampo Airport

While there is no official documented reason, the closure is almost certainly due to one or a combination of the following factors common for such airstrips in this region:
1. **Economic Abandonment:** The airstrip was likely built for a specific, private purpose (e.g., agriculture, transport for a local ranch or mine) that is no longer active. Without an economic reason to maintain it, it was simply abandoned.
2. **Decommissioning by Authorities:** The state of Sinaloa is a focal point for operations against drug trafficking. The Mexican military (SEDENA) frequently discovers and destroys unregistered or clandestine airstrips ('pistas clandestinas') to prevent their use by cartels. It is highly plausible that MX-1522 was either forcibly closed and rendered unusable by authorities or abandoned by its users to avoid such action.

The site is abandoned and completely unusable for aviation. Satellite imagery clearly shows the remnant of a single, unpaved dirt runway. The surface is severely degraded, overgrown with vegetation, and shows no signs of recent maintenance or use. There is no associated infrastructure such as hangars, lighting, a terminal, or fencing. The land appears to be vacant and has reverted to its natural state.

Chinobampo Airport held no major historical significance and was not a public airport. Its ICAO-like identifier, MX-1522, is a non-standard code used for cataloging small, often private, airfields in Mexico, not an official ICAO designation.

Its operations, when active, would have been limited to:
- **General Aviation:** Serving as a private landing strip for light aircraft like Cessnas or Pipers, used by landowners or business interests for transport to a remote area.
- **Agricultural Aviation:** Potentially used by crop-dusting aircraft to service the surrounding farmland.
It never handled commercial, scheduled passenger, or significant cargo operations.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening Chinobampo Airport. Reopening is considered extremely unlikely due to:
- **Lack of Demand:** There is no apparent economic or social need for an airport in this remote, sparsely populated location.
- **High Cost:** The runway would require complete reconstruction to be usable.
- **Regulatory and Security Hurdles:** Given the security situation in the region, gaining official permission to reactivate a remote private airstrip would be exceptionally difficult and subject to intense scrutiny from federal authorities.