| Naval Air Station Corpus Christi | |||||||||||||
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Truax Field | |||||||||||||
| Corpus Christi,Texas in theUnited States | |||||||||||||
 AT-44C Pegasus of Training Wing Four based at NAS Corpus Christi | |||||||||||||
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| Site information | |||||||||||||
| Type | Naval Air Station | ||||||||||||
| Owner | United States Department of Defense | ||||||||||||
| Operator | US Navy | ||||||||||||
| Controlled by | Navy Region Southeast | ||||||||||||
| Condition | Operational | ||||||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||||||
| Location | |||||||||||||
  NAS Corpus Christi Location in the United States | |||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 27°41′33″N97°17′28″W / 27.69250°N 97.29111°W /27.69250; -97.29111 | ||||||||||||
| Site history | |||||||||||||
| Built | 1941 (1941) | ||||||||||||
| In use | 1941 – present | ||||||||||||
| Garrison information | |||||||||||||
| Current commander | Captain Ty C. Jurica | ||||||||||||
| Garrison | Training Air Wing Four | ||||||||||||
| Airfield information | |||||||||||||
| Identifiers | IATA: NGP,ICAO: KNGP,FAA LID: NGP,WMO: 722515 | ||||||||||||
| Elevation | 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in)AMSL | ||||||||||||
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| Source:Federal Aviation Administration[1] | |||||||||||||
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (IATA:NGP,ICAO:KNGP,FAALID:NGP) is aUnited States Navy naval air base located six miles (10 km) southeast of thecentral business district (CBD) ofCorpus Christi, inNueces County, Texas.
A naval air station for Corpus Christi had been proposed since the mid-1930s, and the city'scongressman,Richard M. Kleberg, supported it. But it remained a low priority construction project for theU.S. Navy as late as January 9, 1940. (The Kleberg family andRoy Miller both supportedVice PresidentJohn Nance Garner's quest for the1940 presidential nomination.) Rep.Lyndon B. Johnson made himself a key Texas ally ofPresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt'sbid for a third term, and theWhite House told the Navy Department to consult Johnson, and heed his advice, on Navy contracts in Texas. By February 1940, the project was on the Navy's preferred list.Brown & Root, aHouston firm, shared the construction contract with another New Deal supporter,Henry Kaiser; the president personally signed the (first)cost plus fixed fee contract June 13, 1940. The Roosevelt campaign in Texas no longer had a shortage of cash.[2]
The official step leading to the construction of the Naval Air Station was initiated by the75th United States Congress in 1938. A board found that a lack of training facilities capable of meeting an emergency demand for pilots constituted a grave situation. They recommended the establishment of a second air training station, and further, that it be located onCorpus Christi Bay. NAS Corpus Christi was commissioned by its first Commanding Officer,CAPTAlva Berhard, on March 12, 1941. The first flight training started on May 5, 1941.
In 1941, 800 instructors provided training for more than 300 student pilots a month. The training rate nearly doubled after thebombing of Pearl Harbor. By the end ofWorld War II, more than 35,000 naval aviators had earned their wings there. Corpus Christi provided intermediate flight training in World War II, training naval pilots to flySNJ,SNV,SNB,OS2U,PBY, andN3N type airplanes. In 1944 it was the largest naval aviation training facility in the world. The facility covered 20,000 acres (81 km2), and had 997 hangars, shops, barracks, warehouses and other buildings.
FuturePresidentGeorge H. W. Bush was the youngest pilot to receive his wings at NAS Corpus Christi in June 1943. NAS Corpus Christi also was home to theBlue Angels from 1951 to 1954. It also served as aProject Mercury Tracking station in the early 1960s.[3]
On June 27, 2002,Alfred Bourgeois, a long-haul truck driver who often took his family with him on work trips, was making a delivery at NAS Corpus Christi. As he backed his truck into a loading dock, his 2-year-old daughter accidentally jostled her potty chair and tipped it over. Bourgeois then murdered his daughter after he slammed her head into the interior of his truck with force. He then left her, mortally injured, to carry on with his work. His daughter was found unresponsive by the side of his tractor-trailer. She died the following day and Bourgeois was charged with her murder. Because the murder occurred on a military base, which is classed as federal property, Bourgeois was tried in a federal court as opposed to a state court. In 2004, he was found guilty of her murder and was sentenced to death. In 2020, he was executed by the federal government.[4][5][6]
On May 21, 2020, a motorist crashed through a northern perimeter gate at NAS Corpus Christi, activating vehicle barriers that stopped the vehicle. The driver then got out and opened fire before being shot and killed. ANavy police officer was shot but was protected by a ballistic vest. Officials with theFBI announced the incident wasterrorism-related and a secondperson of interest may be at large.[7][8] The shooter was later identified asAdam Alsalhi, a 20-year-old Corpus Christi resident born inSyria, who had expressed support forISIS andAl-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.[9] The incident was the second fatal shooting and the fourth security incident that caused NAS Corpus Christi to be locked down since February 2019.[10]
Today, the Naval Aviator training program at NAS Corpus Christi is much longer, approximately 18 months, due to the increased complexity of today's aircraft. Currently, Training Air Wing FOUR produces approximately 400 newly qualified aviators each year via the "Maritime Pipeline" for shore-based U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard fixed-wing jet and turboprop aircraft, as well as a limited number of NATO/Allied/Coalition military pilots for similar aircraft.
Training Air Wing FOUR consists of four squadrons. VT-27 and VT-28 handle primary training in theT-6B Texan II, a single engine turboprop aircraft.[citation needed] VT-31 and VT-35 provide advanced training in the twin engineT-44C Pegasus aircraft along with theTextron T-54A.[11]
Other aircraft found at NAS Corpus Christi include the P-3 Orions andGeneral Atomics MQ-9 Reaperdrones operated byU.S. Customs and Border Protection.
In addition to U.S. Navy Student Naval Aviators, VT-31 and VT-35 also train Student Naval Aviators from theU.S. Marine Corps andU.S. Coast Guard. The station employs officer, enlisted and civilian personnel serving in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the military services of numerousNATO/Allied/Coalition partner nations.
In support of the base's training mission are three nearby outlying landing fields owned by the Navy:Naval Outlying Field Waldron, which is 3.5 miles (5.6 km) southwest of the Naval Air Station,Naval Outlying Field Cabaniss, which is 8.0 miles (12.9 km) west of the Naval Air Station andNaval Outlying Field Goliad which is 57.7 miles (92.9 km) north of the Naval Air Station.
NAS Corpus Christi is also home to theCorpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD), the largest helicopter repair facility in the world and an unusual arrangement of an Army installation located on a Naval facility.
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