Chile’s presence in Antarctica depends on aircraft from Punta Arenas. The nearest Chilean airfield on the ice, Teniente Rodolfo Marsh Martín on King George Island, lies about 1,250 km to the south. It is a gravel strip of 1,292 by 39 m beside the air force’s Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva base, and in 2024 it handled 798 aircraft operations and 17,597 passengers. A US$19 million rebuild of the runway began in October 2025.

Further south, Grupo 6’s Twin Otters support the joint Glaciar Unión polar station, 3,000 km from Punta Arenas and 1,129 km from the South Pole, where the AIP lists a 3,000 m blue-ice runway. The 2025–26 season began on 26 November 2025, and the Twin Otters flew scientists to Mount Vinson and to ice-flow beacons.

In September 2026 the FACh announced plans for five Beechcraft King Air 350 and 360 transports to strengthen the Antarctic link, three of them to be based at Punta Arenas and one paid for by the Magallanes regional government.

At 16:55 local time on 9 December 2019, Lockheed C-130 Hercules 990 took off from Punta Arenas for the Frei base with 17 crew and 21 passengers: 15 air force personnel, three army soldiers, two civilians from a contractor and a University of Magallanes student. Contact was lost at 21:13 UTC over the Drake Passage.

Aircraft and ships from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay searched in heavy seas. Wreckage, including the fuselage and human remains, was found on 12 December, about 27 km from the last known position. The air force chief, Gen. Arturo Merino, said everyone on board had been killed; the cause was unknown and, he later said, might never be known.

Sources disagree on the type: the crash article calls 990 a C-130H, Wikipedia’s list of C-130 accidents a KC-130R. No final official finding was found in the sources checked.

Grupo 12 took over the F-5E/F Tigre IIIs from Grupo 7 at Antofagasta in 2010, making Punta Arenas the home of the jets that had arrived in Chile in 1976. In September 2026 the FACh confirmed they will be retired between 2030 and 2035; a replacement had not been chosen.

The far south is also where the air force trains for bad weather. From 21 September 2026 five F-16C/D Block 50s of Grupo 3 flew to Chabunco from Iquique with a KC-135E tanker for 20 days of training with Grupo 12; one was photographed with an Israeli RecceLite reconnaissance pod, and an E-3D Sentry flew in from Santiago to join them. The FACh said the aim was to prepare crews to operate in adverse geography and weather.

In 1982, during the Falklands/Malvinas war between Argentina and the United Kingdom, Chile stayed officially neutral. Wikipedia, summarising British accounts, says London planned Operation Folklore to base two RAF Canberra PR.9s in Chilean markings at the Punta Arenas air base, but abandoned it after press leaks; the Canberras got only as far as Belize.

The airfield at Punta Arenas has three runways, more than any other base in this list: 07/25 of 2,790 m and 12/30 of 2,400 m, both asphalt, and a concrete 01/19 of 1,677 m. The AIP lists the civil aviation authority as operator and marks the air force hangars 179 m from the threshold of runway 25, at an elevation of 43 m.

English Wikipedia lists the IV Air Brigade’s units as Grupos 6 and 12, the 23rd Air Defence Squadron, the 33rd Telecommunications Squadron and the 19th Antarctic Exploration Group. In February 2026 its personnel caught three men photographing the weapons storage area with cameras and a drone; a Punta Arenas court released them under conditions.