Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt

The station is operated and maintained by the Australian Department of Defence on behalf of Australia and the United States and provides very low frequency (VLF) radio transmission to United States Navy, Royal Australian Navy and allied ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean.

[2] The town of Exmouth was built at the same time as the communications station to provide support to the base and to house dependent families of United States Navy personnel.

It states:[5] Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt (NCSHEH) is sited on the northernmost tip of the peninsula known as North West Cape.

[citation needed] With the election of the Labor Government to power in 1972, Defence Minister Lance Barnard started negotiations on the condition of operation of the US military bases in Australia.

[9] In Western Australian domestic politics, the presence of foreign military installations in the state has occasionally been questioned over the decades.

[10] The "US" was dropped from the station's official title with the advent of joint United States and Royal Australian Navy operation in 1974.

[16] On 7 October 2008, Qantas Flight 72 made an emergency landing at Learmonth airport near the town of Exmouth, Western Australia following an inflight accident featuring a pair of sudden uncommanded pitch-down manoeuvres that resulted in serious injuries to many of the occupants.

[17][18][19][20][21] The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) identified in a preliminary report that a fault occurred within the Number 1 Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) and is the "likely origin of the event".

[20][22] The ATSB assessment of speculation that possible interference from Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt or passenger personal electronic devices could have been involved was "extremely unlikely".