Beverly Regional Airport was built in 1928 through the efforts of the Beverly Aero Club and the Beverly Chamber of Commerce. The U.S. Navy operated the airport during World War II under a joint-use agreement as Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Beverly. It existed as an auxiliary air facility of Naval Air Station Squantum. It was commissioned on 15 May, 1943 and the airfield was upgraded with a new asphaltrunway. The Navy built a control tower, a barracks, and other structures and consisted of four officers and sixty enlisted men. The field provided touch and go practice for students at Naval Air Station Squantum as well as Fleet Air Arm student pilots. Planes from Coast Guard Air Station Salem also used the facility for maritime patrol, as well as a detachment from VS-31, which flew anti-submarine patrols with Douglas SBD-5 aircraft. It was decommissioned as a military facility on August 1, 1945. Ownership of the airport was transferred back to the City of Beverly in 1950.
Facilities and aircraft
Beverly Regional Airport covers an area of 470 acres at an elevation of 107 feet above mean sea level. It has two runways with asphalt surfaces: 9/27 is 4,755 by 100 feet and 16/34 is 5,001 by 100 feet. For the 12-month period ending October 1, 2011, the airport had 66,900 aircraft operations, an average of 183 per day: 99% general aviation, 1% air taxi, and <1% military. At that time 103 aircraft were based at this airport: 84% single-engine, 11% multi-engine, 3% helicopter, and 2% jet. Civil Air Patrol Squadron MA-019, Beverly Composite Squadron, is headquartered at Beverly Regional Airport in the old airport control tower. Something Different Cafe is located on the east side of the airport. It is open Tuesday-Sunday 7:00-2:00 and features breakfast and lunch menus.
Notable events
On July 16, 1936, bandleaderOrville Knapp, brother of actress Evalyn Knapp, died in a plane crash here after he misjudged a landing maneuver and stalled in mid-air. SCCA auto races were held at Beverly Airport in 1955 and 1956. The inaugural races were held on July 4, 1955. Phil Hill was the 1955 overall champion. The 1956 champion was Carroll Shelby. On May 9, 1989 Alfred James Hunter III, a postal worker who had shot and killed his ex-wife earlier that evening, stole an airplane at gunpoint from flight instructor. During the flight, which stretched from Danvers to Duxbury, Hunter fired his gun at the ground below, buzzed the South Postal Annex in Boston several times, and briefly touched down at Logan Airport before taking off again. He landed at Logan more than three hours later and was arrested after a minor struggle with police. A scene in the 2000 film The Perfect Storm, was shot at Beverly Airport. In May 2008, a scene for the movie The Proposal was filmed at Beverly Airport. On August 27, 2010, Michael Costales, age 30, a flight instructor at Beverly Regional Airport, was struck and killed by an aircraft moving propeller. Costales had taxied his aircraft out to the run-up area of the active runway, 34 at Beverly Regional Airport. At about 12:30 PM, Costales got out of his Piper PA 28 Cherokee aircraft to assist another flight instructor and his student with fastening the canopy of their PiperSport aircraft. As Costales got out of his aircraft and walked toward the other aircraft, he was struck by his aircraft's propeller. The student pilot in the PiperSport aircraft declared an emergency with the Control Tower who called 911 but Costales was killed instantly. The airport was then shut down for a couple of hours as investigators tried to figure out what caused this event.
