The U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) regarded Howard Air Force Base, which ceased operations on May 1, 1999, as “the jewel in its crown.” Built in 1939, Howard and its 8,000-foot runway hosted the Air Force’s 24th Wing, the Southcom component responsible for air operations over Latin America and the Caribbean.

The 24th Wing had one flying squadron, the 310th Airlift Squadron, which was deactivated in February 1999.¹ Another unit formerly based at Howard, “Coronet Oak,” was a supporting squadron of Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve C-130 cargo aircraft. The unit was responsible for airlifting cargo and providing personnel for Southcom since its founding in 1962. Coronet Oak will continue its activities from two locations in Puerto Rico: the Borinquén Airport in Aguadilla and the Muñiz Air National Guard Base in Carolina. “Coronet Nighthawk,” an Air National Guard counter-drug operation involving F-16 and F-15 fighter planes, will operate from a “Forward Operating Location (FOL)” at an airport elsewhere in the region.² Other 24^th wing assets have been moved to Puerto Rican airfields and FOLs in Aruba, Curaçao and Ecuador.

During the last several years of its existence, Howard Air Force Base was a center for U.S. counternarcotics detection, monitoring, intelligence-gathering and communications. During most of the 1990s over 2,000 counter-drug flights per year originated from Howard. 

Until May 1999 Howard was home to Joint Inter-Agency Task Force South (JIATF-S, formerly known as the Joint Air Operations Center). This facility, staffed by military, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), U.S. Customs Service and civilian intelligence personnel, was established in 1992 to plan counternarcotics operations, train and advise the hemisphere’s counter-drug forces, and monitor South America’s skies for suspicious drug-related activity. JIATF-S focused on the "source zone," where drugs are produced. JIATF-East, in Key West, Florida, performed similar missions in the "transit zone," where drugs are transshipped to the United States.

JIATF-S closed its doors on May 1, 1999 and merged with the Key West facility. The consolidated task force now coordinates counternarcotics activities in both the source and transit zones. “Through deliberate integration of communications and information systems,” said Southcom Commander-in-Chief Gen. Charles Wilhelm, “we have created a single organization capable of ‘seeing’ from the Florida Straits into the Andean Ridge.”³

Sources:

¹ Tech. Sgt. Rick Burnham, 24th Wing Public Affairs Office, “Howard units begin leaving Panama,” Air Force News February 19, 1999 <http://www.af.mil/news/Feb1999/n19990219_990266.html>.

Howard Air Force Base, April 1998 <http://www.howard.af.mil/>.

United States Southern Command Headquarters, Fact Sheet: U.S. Military in Panama Now, (Panama: January 31, 1997).

United States Southern Command, Profile of the U.S. Southern Command, October 1997, United States Southern Command Headquarters, April 1998 <http://www.ussouthcom.com/southcom/graphics/profile.htm>.

² United States Southern Command, Post-99 Theater Architecture: The Way Ahead, slideshow document, October 28, 1998.

Howard Air Force Base.

Southern Command, Fact Sheet: U.S. Military in Panama Now.

Southern Command, Profile of the U.S. Southern Command.

³ Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command, Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, Narcotics and Terrorism, June 22, 1999.