Hato Navy Air Station
Hato International Airport
Curacao, Netherlands Antilles
The Royal Netherlands navy, marines and air force all have permanent facilities on Curacao, including the Hato Navy Air Station where Coronet Nighthawk personnel are currently operating. "Nighthawk" is the key word because the suspected drug planes generally fly north out of South America so they can reach their drop points after dark, when they are more difficult to detect. They return to their home bases under the cover of darkness. First Air Force flying units typically rotate aircraft, mechanics and pilots for six-week periods to Coronet Nighthawk. Now they'll operate from an austere, forward operating location on Curacao. Up to 100 Air National Guard members spend two weeks at a time flying and maintaining six jet fighters at the Hato International Airport on Curacao's northern shore. The planes are not armed with ammunition or live missiles, but their speed and sophisticated radar systems make them a valuable part of an extensive land and sea, military and civilian counter-drug operation.
Progress continues on US Southern Command’s Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) to replace counterdrug aerial detection and monitoring missions formerly flown by DoD and interagency aircraft from Howard Air Force Base in Panama. Since 01 May 1999 the US has staged air operations from Curacao and Aruba, and Manta, Ecuador. The total numbers of hours on station were equal to or greater than when the US flew from Howard.
Coronet Nighthawk moved to Hato International Airport in Curacao in May of 1999. The operation in Curacao is not yet as robust as it was in Panama, because the new facility is far smaller. The ramp and maintenance area, where the jets are parked and worked on, sits beside the civilian airport. A compact village of 12 canvas, air-conditioned tents, shaped like Quonset huts, serves as the headquarters and the haven for the eight-member alert crews. Expansion of the runway and the building of a new ramp and hangar are planned to support the counter-drug mission. Even though it is estimated to take three years to complete, these renovations will alleviate the waiting time that is imposed on CNH due to Hato IAP air traffic.
Air Guard units fly only over open waters and not over land. The water surveillance mission is entirely supported by Air National Guard personnel. The suspicious plane or ship is followed and observed as it makes its delivery and is followed again as it returns to the point it originated from. Subsequently, the Air Guard units will notify local and federal law enforcement agencies of the suspicious ship or aircraft and these agencies will make the arrest.
USCINCSO’s implementation concept is a phased approach, including the requirement to operate from the FOLs in an expeditionary manner. But such operations are not sustainable in the long term. Certain safety and infrastructure improvements will need to be completed before commencing full-scale operations to maximize US use of these airfields, but construction is planned only where existing host-nation facilities are unavailable. For example, the US is planning for "expeditionary construction" of structures using concrete foundations and metal skin siding exteriors. All of this is designed to meet minimum requirements while minimizing costs. When the projects are completed, USCINCSO fully expects to replicate the level of detection and monitoring flown from Howard Air Force Base, without increasing costs or OPTEMPO of the Services.
The Netherlands Antilles includes Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten (Dutch part of the island of Saint Martin). It consists of two island groups - Curacao and Bonaire are located off the coast of Venezuela, and Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius lie 800 km (430 mi) to the north. Curacao is famous for sparkling clean beaches, beautiful clear water, and friendly locals. Curaçao is a tangled plate of spaghetti western tossed down in the Caribbean Sea and garnished with a glob of Willemstad sophisti-sauce. The island's scrubby kunuku (countryside) is strewn with cacti, keening divi-divi trees and lizards looking glibly at diving weirdos with oxygen strapped to their backs. The capital, Willemstad, manages to be both dinky and grand while serving up the food, shopping and slickness of a town much less manageable. Curaçao's beaches may be nubbled with coral or strewn with imported grains and the local liqueur a first rate gut-rot, but the queen of the Netherlands Antilles more than makes up for these niggles with high comfort levels, guaranteed balminess and a friendliness that constantly threatens to bubble over into a party.
As part of the US military's pullout from Howard Air Force Base, Panama, six C-130 and four F-16 aircraft and about 170 airmen assigned to the 24th Wing, and representing two Air Force flying missions, moved 01 May 1999, respectively to airfields in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Curacao's international airport. The E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System planes that are the heart of the counterdrug fight, and the KC-135 tankers, now fly from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. And the F-15 and F-16 fighters that protect the AWACs — known as Coronet Nighthawk — are flying from three forward operating locations: the Dutch Caribbean islands of Curacao and Aruba, and Ecuador. The three bases are closer to South American drug-producing centers and Caribbean trafficking routes. In the mid-1990's a yearly deployment of more than 30 ANG and AFRES fighter units to Panama began to support counterdrug tasking Coronet Nighthawk. Now Air National Guard F-16 jet fighters deploy in Curacao for Coronet Nighthawk counterdrug duty.
