The runway at Narsarsuaq in Greenland seen from an aircraft over the fjord

Bluie West One: The Fjord Airfield That Fed a War and Just Closed

by Tamika Johnson | Sep 23, 2026 | Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare | 0 comments

There is a moment on the approach to Narsarsuaq where the decision stops being yours. You have turned into the fjord. The water is below, the rock is on both sides, and the channel is too narrow and the walls too high to turn around in. The only way out is forward, to a runway you cannot yet see.

For eighty-four years, pilots flew that approach. On 17 April 2026 the last one did.

Greenland moved its fixed-wing services to a new airport at Qaqortoq the day before, and Bluie West One — the airfield that fed ten thousand aircraft into the war against Germany — became a heliport.

Informazioni rapide

Nome	Bluie West One, later Narsarsuaq Air Base, then Narsarsuaq Airport (BGBW)
Costruito	US Army construction from mid-1941; first aircraft landed January 1942
Why there	A wide patch of glacial moraine at the head of a navigable fjord, the only usable ground for miles
Wartime role	Link in the North Atlantic ferry route to Britain
Peak strength	About 4,000 American servicemen
Aircraft passed through	Roughly 10,000
Handed to Denmark	1958
Closed to aeroplanes	17 April 2026; fixed-wing traffic moved to the new airport at Qaqortoq on 16 April
Status now	Heliport only, serving the local community

Why Greenland mattered

In 1941 Britain was losing supply ships faster than it could replace them. Aircraft shipped across the Atlantic in crates were being sunk in the crates. The answer was to fly them instead, and flying them meant stepping stones.

There was a second reason, less often told. Southern Greenland held the largest cryolite mine in the world, and cryolite was essential to smelting aluminium. Germany had been interested in it since the 1930s. An aluminium supply is an aircraft industry, and nobody wanted to find out what Germany would do with the mine.

Roosevelt and Churchill settled the arrangement at a secret meeting in Newfoundland. American reconnaissance flights went looking for somewhere in southern Greenland flat enough to build on, which in a country of fjords and ice is a genuinely difficult request. They found one patch of glacial moraine at the head of a navigable fjord, near a tiny settlement called Narsarssuaq.

Aerial view of Bluie West One air base in Greenland in 1942 — Bluie West One in 1942. Two runways cut into a glacial moraine, with mountains on three sides and the fjord as the only way in. Photo: US Army Air Forces

Construction started in mid-1941 and took a year: a 5,000-foot pierced-steel-mat runway, barracks, a radar station on top of a mountain, and a non-directional beacon on the island of Simiutaq at the fjord mouth so that crews could confirm they were entering the right fjord. A half-sunken freighter provided a mid-fjord checkpoint until it sank completely.

Bluie was the code word for Greenland. West meant the western coast. One meant this was the southernmost of the airfields. Bluie West Eight, built by October 1941 some 250 miles north, is the field the Danish F-35s landed at last week — today it is called Kangerlussuaq.

Ten thousand aircraft

The route ran Presque Isle in Maine, Goose Bay in Labrador, Bluie West One, then Reykjavik or Keflavik, then Prestwick in Scotland — with no single leg longer than about 850 miles. It was built so that single-engine fighters could cross an ocean.

In mid-June 1942 Major General Carl Spaatz radioed from Bluie West One, mid-crossing, and ordered the Eighth Air Force movement to Britain to begin. P-38s and P-39s went over shepherded by longer-legged B-17s. Four thousand troops were stationed at BW-1 at its peak. An Army hospital arrived in 1943.

“Once the pilot entered the fjord, he was essentially committed: The fjord’s narrow channel and mountainous walls made a 180-degree turn practically impossible.”

Thomas A. Horne — AOPA, on the approach into Narsarsuaq, March 2026

Two SB-17 rescue aircraft of the 51st Rescue Squadron on the ramp at Narsarsuaq Air Base — SB-17 rescue aircraft of the 51st Rescue Squadron on the Narsarsuaq ramp. In the Cold War the base became a refuelling stop for jets and helicopters crossing the North Atlantic. Photo: US Air Force

The tugboat and the icebergs

The base did not stop being strange after the war. The USAF kept it through the early Cold War as a refuelling station for jet fighters and helicopters crossing the Atlantic, and paved the runway in concrete.

Jets need a longer take-off run than propeller aircraft, and take-offs at Narsarsuaq are made westward, out over the basin. So the base kept a small tugboat whose job was to push icebergs out of the way of departing aircraft.

“We went swimming in a pond atop a mountain overlooking the glacier behind the base. The water was crystal clear and very cold. There was a very large rock jutting out into the water and we would dive off of it and immediately swim to shore, lay out in the sun to warm up and dry.”

Harold Patton — US Air Police at Bluie West One, 1952–53

Aerial refuelling and the opening of Thule in the far north eventually made BW-1 redundant. It was handed to the Danish government of Greenland in 1958 and carried on as a civil airport, with a 6,000-foot paved runway, serving Air Greenland and — crucially for a certain kind of aviator — light aircraft crossing the Atlantic.

The approach from the cockpit of a King Air, which is the clearest way to understand why this airfield had a reputation.

A rite of passage, and a long list of reasons not to

Narsarsuaq sits roughly midway between Goose Bay and Reykjavik, which makes it the natural fuel stop for piston singles and twins with ferry tanks and four to seven hours of endurance. Generations of ferry pilots therefore had no realistic alternative.

What they got in exchange: low ceilings, high terrain, minimums around 1,800 feet, high winds, a final approach fix nine miles out, a missed approach point three miles from the threshold, and a missed approach procedure full of tight turns near mountains. The field closed at night and on holidays. You were fined for landing on a Sunday. For a long time there were no terminal forecasts at all, and the weather reports only existed while the tower was open.

“The mountains press so close to the runway that, if you are in the window seat of your Air Iceland Bombardier, you can’t help wondering if the wingtip is going to scrape on the rock.”

Daniel Ford — Writer and historian, on visiting Narsarsuaq in 2005

The nominated alternate was Kangerlussuaq, 250 miles away, which has better weather and a 9,000-foot runway — and which is a deeply unpleasant leg to contemplate when you are short of fuel.

The last landing

Greenland decided in 2018 to close the field to aeroplanes and build a proper airport at Qaqortoq, 37 nautical miles south and much closer to the people it serves. Qaqortoq has a 4,900-foot runway and terrain that, while not flat, is nothing like the three-thousand-footers wrapped around Narsarsuaq. In October 2025 the layoffs began; around seventy jobs went as the field wound down.

The last aeroplane to land at BGBW, filmed from the cockpit of a Cessna Caravan.

The airfield is still there. The runway is still there. The mountains are certainly still there.

Greenland Airports still points a live camera down the field, which is a peculiar thing to watch: a runway in working order, in daylight, with nothing coming.

Sources: AOPA (Thomas A. Horne, March 2026); Air Force Historical Research Agency; warbirdforum.com (Daniel Ford), including correspondence from Harold Patton and Harold Case; Greenland Airports; Ernest K. Gann, Fate Is the Hunter.

Domande frequenti

What was Bluie West One?

Bluie West One was the American air base built in southern Greenland in 1941 at what is now Narsarsuaq. It became the key refuelling stop on the North Atlantic ferry route, and an estimated 10,000 aircraft passed through it on their way to the war in Europe and North Africa.

Why was it called Bluie West One?

Bluie was the American code word for Greenland. West indicated the western coast, and One meant it was the most southerly of the Greenland airfields and harbours. Bluie West Eight, about 250 nautical miles north, is today Kangerlussuaq Airport.

Why is the approach into Narsarsuaq so difficult?

The airfield sits at the head of a long fjord, surrounded by mountains rising to around 3,000 feet. The standard arrival is a low-level flight up the fjord, and once inside it a 180-degree turn is effectively impossible. Weather in southern Greenland is frequently poor.

Why do aircraft always land in one direction at Narsarsuaq?

The runway slopes uphill from west to east, so landings are made to the east and take-offs to the west almost regardless of wind direction. Sloping-runway airfields trade the usual into-wind logic for gravity.

When did Narsarsuaq Airport close?

Fixed-wing services transferred to the newly built airport at Qaqortoq on 16 April 2026, and Narsarsuaq closed to aeroplanes the following day. The field remains open as a heliport for the local community after eighty-four years of aircraft operations.

Why did Greenland close Narsarsuaq?

The decision was taken in 2018. The terrain, weather and approach made it a difficult and limited airfield, and Qaqortoq about 37 nautical miles south is closer to the population it serves. Qaqortoq has a 4,900-foot runway and far less surrounding terrain.

What role did Greenland play in the Second World War?

Beyond the ferry route, Greenland held the world’s largest cryolite mine, which Germany had shown interest in since the 1930s. Cryolite was essential to aluminium production and therefore to aircraft manufacture, which sharpened American interest in defending the island.

Can civilians still fly into Narsarsuaq?

Not in an aeroplane. The airfield is now helicopter-only. Transatlantic light aircraft that once used it as the natural midpoint between Goose Bay and Reykjavik now plan around Qaqortoq or Kangerlussuaq instead.