Air Station North Bend, Oregon

Original Location: 
North Bend Municipal Airport

Current Location:
Same

Date of Commission:
1974

Fate:
Still in operation

Historical Remarks:

The Group/Air Station was built in 1974 for $ 2.4 million and actually houses two Coast Guard units.  Coast Guard Group North Bend is the senior of the two.  It has operational and administrative control over all the lifeboat stations on the Southern Oregon coast from Depoe Bay to the California border, covering 220 miles of coast line.  As well as the lifeboat stations, Group North Bend also coordinates the efforts of an Aids to Navigation Team, a Telephone Repair Station and an Air Station.  The Commanding Officer of Air Station North Bend also serves as Group Commander.

The first assigned aircraft were HH-52As CG-1369, CG-1373, and CG-1439.

A helicopter from North Bend Station sank November 23, 1980 while attempting to assist a fishing vessel in distress nine miles west of the Umpqua River entrance.  All four crewmen escaped without injury.

As of 2006 there were five HH-65s assigned to the air station

Commanding Officers

1974-1976: CDR Lewis
1976-1978: CDR Thomas P. Keane

Historical Sources:

Air Station Files, U. S. Coast Guard Historian's Office

Arthur Pearcy.  A History of U. S. Coast Guard Aviation.  Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.