For the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

 use of this facility prior to March 1994, see Norton Air Force Base

Norton Air Force Base

Norton Air Force Base is a former front-line United States Air Force facility located east of downtown San Bernardino, California in San Bernardino County.-Overview:...

San Bernardino International Airport (SBIA) is a public airport

Airport

An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

 located two miles (3 km) southeast of the central business district of San Bernardino, California

Downtown San Bernardino

Downtown San Bernardino is a district in San Bernardino, California, United States. It is home to city and county government buildings, as well as the city's central business district...

, in San Bernardino County

San Bernardino County, California

San Bernardino County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 2,035,210, up from 1,709,434 as of the 2000 census...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The airport covers 1329 acres (537.8 ha) and has one runway

Runway

According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...

. It is currently a general aviation

General aviation

General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...

 and cargo airport located on the former site of Norton Air Force Base

Norton Air Force Base

Norton Air Force Base is a former front-line United States Air Force facility located east of downtown San Bernardino, California in San Bernardino County.-Overview:...

. A non-federal control tower (NFCT) began operation on November 9, 2008, operated under contract by SERCO company personnel. The new tower frequency is 119.45.

Grand Jury Investigation, FBI Raid, Director Resignation

Redevelopment of the airport has been embroiled in controversy. An audit completed June 2011 at the request of a grand jury investigation found significant mismanagement and financial irregularities. In September 2011, as part of a special joint corruption task force, the FBI raided the airport and the home of airport developer Scot Spencer, a convicted felon who has been enjoined by the Federal government from having anything to do with aviation who nonetheless has been awarded numerous contracts at SBIA. In late September 2011, Don Rogers, the long-time Director of the SBIA Authority (SBIAA) resigned in the wake of the FBI raid. The aforementioned audit/grand jury report detailed a close relationship between Rogers and Spencer, including the recent quick settlement of a legal claim by companies owned by Spencer against the SBIAA for a sum of almost $1 million without ascertaining whether Spencer's companies did, in fact, suffer damages of such an amount.

Norton Air Force Base

Norton Air Force Base

Norton Air Force Base is a former front-line United States Air Force facility located east of downtown San Bernardino, California in San Bernardino County.-Overview:...

The airbase opened shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor to protect the Southern California area. Norton was placed on the Department of Defense's base closure list

Base Realignment and Closure

Base Realignment and Closure is a process of the United States federal government directed at the administration and operation of the Armed Forces, used by the United States Department of Defense and Congress to close excess military installations and realign the total asset inventory to reduce...

 in 1989 (the same year that the DoD signed the Federal Facilities Agreement with the EPA).

The closure was cited as due to environmental wastes, inadequate facilities, and air traffic congestion (due to air traffic from Ontario International Airport, 20 miles (32.2 km) west, and Los Angeles International Airport, 100 miles (160.9 km) west). The last of the facilities on the base were closed in 1995.

Status

U.S. Customs Service

United States Customs Service

Until March 2003, the United States Customs Service was an agency of the U.S. federal government that collected import tariffs and performed other selected border security duties.Before it was rolled into form part of the U.S...

 agents are available on call to clear imported goods. The airport is used as a base for United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...

 planes fighting forest fires

Wildfire

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

. Several hangars that were formerly empty have recently been occupied by civilian-owned aircraft maintenance companies. The runway is 10000 feet (3,048 m) long, easily accommodating air cargo aircraft. However, UPS Airlines

UPS Airlines

UPS Airlines is an American cargo airline owned by United Parcel Service Inc. . The company is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. Its home airport is located at Louisville International Airport...

 and FedEx Express choose to use LA/Ontario International Airport to the west.

The airport and surrounding areas are within the City of San Bernardino

San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...

, and the Inland Valley Development Agency. The airport and surrounding areas are being redeveloped by Hillwood.

Several major projects for the former air base and surrounding area are imminent or already under way, including Stater Bros.

Stater Bros.

Stater Bros. Markets is a privately held supermarket chain, based in San Bernardino, California, consisting of over 167 stores located throughout Southern California. Founded in Yucaipa, California in 1936 by Cleo and Leo Stater , it consisted of 167 stores as of February 23, 2009...

 Markets which moved its corporate headquarters from Colton to the former air base site in September 2007. The 170000 square feet (15,793.5 m²) offices are completed. Stater Bros. began moving warehousing and distribution operations into a 2100000 square feet (195,096.4 m²) facility in February 2007. Part of a $300 million-plus total investment in the city, the warehouse is the largest supermarket distribution facility in the nation, Brown said.

The airport has served as the filming location for both the 2001 movie The Fast and the Furious

The Fast and the Furious (2001 film)

The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 street racing action film starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster. Directed by Rob Cohen, The Fast and the Furious was the first mainstream film to feature the Asian automotive import scene in North America. It is the first film...

 and the 2004 Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

 film The Aviator using a Lockheed Constellation

Lockheed Constellation

The Lockheed Constellation was a propeller-driven airliner powered by four 18-cylinder radial Wright R-3350 engines. It was built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958 at its Burbank, California, USA, facility. A total of 856 aircraft were produced in numerous models, all distinguished by a...

 preserved by the Airline History Museum

Airline History Museum

The National Airline History Museum is located at the Kansas City Downtown Airport in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.- History :Founded in 1986 by aviation enthusiasts Larry A. Brown and Dick McMahon, the Airline History Museum was originally known as Save-A-Connie...

, and flown in for the shoot, were done at San Bernardino International, with one hangar "dressed" as a Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines was an American airline that existed from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major domestic airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways on intercontinental routes from 1946...

 facility.

Passenger Terminal

San Bernardino International Airport has a renovated passenger terminal capable of handling scheduled commercial service. However, no scheduled commercial operations or airlines occupy the terminal.

The terminal was redeveloped by a company controlled by convicted felon Scot Spencer and another company controlled by Spencer was awarded a 25 year contract to run the terminal. The development company controlled by Spencer, which had no prior experience in airport development, bought used equipment from the old American Airlines

American Airlines

American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...

 terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...

 in New York, including 20 to 36 year-old jetbridges and seats, which it refurbished for use at SBIA. The audit/grand jury report concluded that the jetbridges were likely already at the end of their lifecycles, were unsuitable for the type of aircraft that SBIA was likely to attract and that new seats could likely have been bought for half the cost of the refurbished seats.

Location

The airport is located approximately 2 miles (3 km) east of downtown San Bernardino

Downtown San Bernardino

Downtown San Bernardino is a district in San Bernardino, California, United States. It is home to city and county government buildings, as well as the city's central business district...

, 22 miles (29 km) east of Ontario

Ontario, California

Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California, United States, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire region, it lies just east of the Los Angeles county line and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area...

 and 14 miles (23 km) northeast of downtown Riverside

Riverside, California

Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...

. Motorists can either use the San Bernardino Freeway

Interstate 10 in California

Interstate 10 , the major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States, runs in the U.S. state of California east from Santa Monica, on the Pacific Ocean, through Los Angeles and San Bernardino to the border with Arizona...

 (Interstate 10), Barstow-Downtown San Bernardino-Riverside Freeway

Interstate 215 (California)

Interstate 215 is a long north–south Interstate highway in the Inland Empire region of Southern California. It is an auxiliary route of Interstate 15 , running from Murrieta to northern San Bernardino...

 (Interstate 215), or the Foothill Freeway

Interstate 210 and State Route 210 (California)

Interstate 210 and State Route 210 together form a contiguous highway, called the Foothill Freeway, in the Greater Los Angeles area of the U.S. state of California. The western portion of the route is an auxiliary Interstate Highway, while the eastern portion is a state highway...

 (State Route 210) to access the airport. It is also served by Omnitrans

Omnitrans

Omnitrans is a public transportation agency in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The largest transit operator within San Bernardino County, it serves the San Bernardino Valley. The agency was established in 1976 through a joint powers agreement and today includes 15 cities and...

 route 8.

Airlines and destinations

Currently, no airlines operate any regularly scheduled service out of KSBD.

The June 2011 audit/grand jury report stated that Scot Spencer and Don Rogers continually maintained for several years, up until March 2011, that commercial service was imminent, but that the audit was not able to identify any evidence of any negotiations with a commercial carrier. Million Air

Million Air

Million Air is an aviation company that operates fixed base operators across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. The Million Air Brand of FBOs has been providing general aviation service since 2006...

, a fixed base operation company, operates a private charter terminal at the airport under a 25-year contract awarded to a company controlled by Scot Spencer, a convicted felon. The local Million Air franchise also controls the fuel farm.

External links

• San Bernardino International Airport (official site)