Kamakaiwi Field

The airfield ceased operations following a Japanese attack on December 8, 1941, in the hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A Japanese bomber attacked the island, killing two of the four American colonists. The airstrips were damaged, and the surviving colonists were evacuated by a US Navy destroyer in January 1942. The airfield was never repaired or used for aviation again. Post-war, the island's extreme remoteness, lack of strategic value, and harsh environment made maintaining an airfield economically and logistically unviable, leading to its permanent abandonment.

The site of Kamakaiwi Field is completely abandoned and in ruins. The island is uninhabited and is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge. The outlines of the three runways are still faintly discernible in satellite imagery but are heavily overgrown with vegetation and are unusable. The island is also home to the ruins of the colonists' settlement, Itascatown, and a partially rebuilt day beacon known as the Earhart Light. Access to the island is severely restricted and generally granted only by special-use permit to scientists, researchers, and educators.

Kamakaiwi Field holds a significant place in aviation history, primarily due to its direct connection to Amelia Earhart's ill-fated 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The airfield, consisting of three graded, unpaved runways, was constructed in 1936-1937 by the U.S. Department of the Interior specifically to serve as a crucial refueling stop for Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. It was named after James Kamakaiwi, a young Hawaiian colonist who had died on the island. On July 2, 1937, Earhart and Noonan departed from Lae, New Guinea, on one of the final legs of their journey, but they never arrived at Howland Island, creating one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation. The airfield never handled any other regular aircraft operations and existed solely for this purpose, maintained by a small group of young American colonists as part of the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project. The provided ICAO code 'UM-0002' is a non-standard identifier, likely used in flight simulators, as the airfield never had an official ICAO code during its brief operational period.

There are no plans or prospects for reopening Kamakaiwi Field. The island's status as a protected National Wildlife Refuge prioritizes conservation over development. The extreme isolation, lack of fresh water, and significant logistical and financial challenges associated with rebuilding and maintaining an airfield in such a remote location make any such project infeasible and without purpose. Its future is as a historical site and a protected habitat for seabirds and marine life, not as an active airfield.