Apalachicola Regional Airport (IATA: AAF, ICAO: KAAF, FAA LID: AAF) is a county-owned, public-use airport located two nautical miles (4 km) west of the central business district of Apalachicola, a city in Franklin County, Florida, United States.
Apalachicola AAF's mission was to support the operations of the Training Command Flexible Gunnery School under the 2136th Army Air Forces Base Unit, and as a sub-base and auxiliary airfield for Tyndall.
[4][5][6] On March 15, 1964, a pilot with the U.S. Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, was killed during an attempted emergency landing at Apalachicola Municipal Airport when his F-11A Tiger experienced engine difficulties while transiting from West Palm Beach, Florida, back to the Blue Angels' home base at NAS Pensacola, Florida.
LT George L. Neale, USN, age 29, who flew in the Number Four slot position of the diamond formation, was returning from a demonstration at West Palm Beach with one other of the six team jets and an R5D Skymaster support plane when he radioed Tyndall Air Force Base, near Panama City, Florida, that he was declaring an emergency and requesting permission to land at Tyndall when he suffered engine mechanical problems south of Apalachicola.
[1] For the 12-month period ending April 3, 2018, the airport had 24,375 aircraft operations, an average of 67 per day: 95% general aviation, 5% air taxi, and <1% military.