Michael J. Smith Field (ICAO: KMRH, FAA LID: MRH) is a public airport located one mile (2 km) north of the central business district of Beaufort and northeast of Morehead City, in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. It is owned by the Beaufort-Morehead City Airport Authority.[1]
Michael J. Smith Field | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||||||
| Owner | Beaufort-Morehead City Airport Authority | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serves | Beaufort, North Carolina | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 11 ft / 3 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 34°44′01″N 076°39′38″W | ||||||||||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Statistics (2006) | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
Source: Federal Aviation Administration[1] | |||||||||||||||||||
The airport is named in memory of astronaut Michael J. Smith, a native of Beaufort who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.[2] It was formerly known as Beaufort-Morehead City Airport.[3]
Although most U.S. airports are assigned the same three-letter location identifier by the FAA and IATA, Michael J. Smith Field is assigned MRH by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA[4] (which assigned MRH to May River Airport in Papua New Guinea).[5]
Michael J. Smith Field covers an area of 400 acres (160 ha) which contains three asphalt paved runways:
For the 12-month period ending June 5, 2015, the airport averaged 120 operations per day: 86% general aviation, 9% air taxi and 6% military. At that time there were 54 aircraft based at this airport of which 54 were single-engine, 7 were multi-engine, and 2 were jet airplanes.[6]
Piedmont Airlines was serving the airport by 1948 with a daily Douglas DC-3 flight operating direct service to Raleigh/Durham, NC, Greensboro, NC, Winston-Salem, NC, Cincinnati, OH and other en route destinations.[7] Wheeler Airlines, a commuter air carrier, served the airport during the mid-1970s with Cessna 402 flights to Charlotte, NC, Norfolk, VA and Raleigh/Durham NC.[8][9]