The missions of CGAS Cape Cod include search and rescue (SAR), maritime law enforcement, International Ice Patrol, aids to navigation support (such as operating lighthouses), and marine environmental protection (such as responding to oil spills).

[1] The HH-3F Pelicans and HU-16E Albatrosses were transferred from CGAS Salem and CGAD Quonset Point Rhode Island (NAS) to Cape Cod in the summer of 1970.

The CG-1432 crash was a United States Coast Guard aviation accident which involved five crewmembers aboard a helicopter responding to a distress call from the Japanese fishing vessel Kaisei Maru #18.

[3] This most likely caused the death of four crew members: Canadian Armed Forces Captain G. Richard Burge (exchange copilot), and U.S. Coast Guard personnel Lieutenant Commander James Stiles (Aircraft Commander), Petty Officer Second Class John Tait (Avionicsman/Navigator), and Petty Officer Second Class Bruce Kaehler (Hospital Corpsman).

[3] The lone survivor, Petty Officer Second Class Mark Torr (Flight Mechanic/Hoist Operator), remembers the flipping of the helicopter and swimming out, holding onto the nose wheel to stay near the aircraft.

[3] In an article in the Cape Cod Times that ran on February 22, 1979, the air station's commanding officer, Captain Arthur Wagner, said, "They will never be forgotten.

Also at service, crash survivor Mark Torr dropped a wreath in memory of his fellow airmen from a hovering helicopter into the surf off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.