Burevestnik is a military air base on Iturup Island, Russia, establishing the nation's presence on the disputed South Kuril Islands with the largest airfield in the region. It is also the former Soviet Union's most remote interceptor base, home of 387 IAP. During the 1970s it flew MiG-21bis and upgraded to MiG-23 jets in 1983. An Army helicopter combat support squadron was also stationed at the airfield in the early 1980s, providing limited fire support and transport capability. Burevestnik's communications and logistics were tied to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and supplies were flown in weekly on An-12 aircraft.
History
During WWII, Burevestnik was a Japanese airfield known as Tennei Airfield. After Soviet re-occupation, as many as 100 aircraft were observed at any given time from 1945 to 1952. By the early 1960s, MiG-15 and MiG-17 jet fighters were based at the airfield. In 1965 the runway was lengthened from 1930 m to approximately 2500 m. Burevestnik's close proximity to Japan's highly populated Hokkaidō Island, by only 190 km, and to major aviation corridors kept the base in a state of constant alert. In 1968, an American Douglas DC-8 was forced to land here after straying off course in the Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253 incident. In April 1983, Burevestnik's MiG-21s were alerted due to a close approach of American F-14 aircraft but did not take off due to bad weather. The Soviet Air Force41st Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO, flying MiG-23MLs and MiG-23MLDs, operated from the base from April 1983 to May 1994, under the control of 40 IAD, 24th Air Defence Division and then finally 72nd Air Defence Corps. In 1993 the VVS decided to withdraw its 40 MiG-23 aircraft at Burevestnik. The decision was said in the Russian press to come as good news to its pilots, as the failure of the MiG-23's single R-35 turbojet engine would be "the last failure in the pilot's life", and that a ship or submarine would come by three days after the accident at best. The Russian article also described Burevestnik as a bare-base facility, with no hangars, and aircraft "rusting year-round under the open sky". On 17 September 2014, new Iturup Airport was opened northeast of the town of Kurilsk. After that Burevestnik Airport remains as a military base and a reserve airfield for Iturup.
Airlines and destinations
There is no longer any passenger traffic scheduled after Aurora moved its Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk route to newly opened Iturup Airport.
