OVERSWEEPThe Interactive Flight Reference

Rota International Airport

Drafted — not technically validated

Record revision 1 · Rota's commuter airport, a Japanese wartime strip rebuilt by Seabees in 1945 as an emergency field.

A real-world airfield as described in public sources, and how sim maps represent it. Units, facilities and names change; each is dated where the sources allow, and the charts are not for navigation. Use current official publications for flight planning.

Location and identity

Location
Rota Island, Northern Mariana Islands, near the village of Sinapalo, 6 miles north-east of Rota [1] [2]
Country or territory
Northern Mariana Islands (US commonwealth)
Coordinates
14.1744° N, 145.2411° E [2]
Elevation
606 ft (185 m) [2]
Identifiers
ICAO PGRO · IATA ROP · FAA GRO
Other names
  • Benjamin Taisacan Manglona International Airport [1]
Opened
built by the Japanese during the Second World War; no opening year is given in the sources consulted [1]

Role and operators

Status
Active · Civil
Roles today
Civil airport
Operators
  • Commonwealth Ports Authority, owner of the public airport · Northern Mariana Islands (US commonwealth), civil · current; start date not given [1] [2]
  • US Navy, 300 men of the 48th Naval Construction Battalion repaired the runway, which then served as an emergency strip for the Tinian and Saipan airfields · United States, navy · from Sep 1945, end not given [1]

Runways and facilities

From data effective Oct 2026. Facilities not listed here are not documented in the sources cited, which does not mean the airfield lacks them.

RunwayLengthWidthSurface
09/27 [2]7,000 ft (2,134 m)150 ft (46 m)asphalt
Arresting gear
None documented in the sources cited
Navaids
  • NDB GRO, 332 kHz, on the field [2]
Other
  • No control tower: Rota air/ground radio and the CTAF on 123.6 MHz; approach and departure service from Guam CERAP [2]
  • Prior permission from Rota Flight Service for unscheduled aircraft [2]
  • A port of entry with customs and immigration [1]

Figure 1 — Airfield map of Rota International Airport (to scale)

0927N500 m
  • Runway
  • Taxiway
  • Apron
  • Hangar or terminal

Runways, taxiways, aprons and buildings mapped at the airfield, which OpenStreetMap gives no boundary, true north up, drawn from OpenStreetMap data retrieved 2026-11-01. Widths come from the map data or, where it gives none, a typical 45 m runway and 18 m taxiway. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL 1.0. Community-mapped, not an official aerodrome chart, and not for navigation.

Sim maps

Represented in: DCS: Marianas

DCS: Marianas DCS World · Present day

Represented as “Rota Intl” · checked 2026-11-01 [3]

  • Runway 09/27 [3]
  • Radio on 123.6 MHz VHF [3], the frequency the FAA lists for the field [2], and 250.0 MHz UHF [3]
  • NDB GRO, 332 kHz [3]

Only the maps marked represented or confirmed absent have been checked. Any other map may or may not represent this airfield.

Other maps in East Asia and the Pacific, not yet checked for this airfield, which may lie outside them: DCS: Marianas 1944, Falcon BMS: Korea, Falcon 4.0: Korea.

Role today

Rota International is the public airport of Rota, owned by the Commonwealth Ports Authority and used mostly for short commuter flights; Star Marianas Air connects it with GuamAntonio B. Won Pat International Airport AirfieldGuam's international airport on the site of Naval Air Station Agana, with two long parallel runways. and SaipanSaipan International Airport AirfieldThe Japanese Aslito Field captured in June 1944 and rebuilt as Isely Field for B-29s against Japan, now the Northern Mariana Islands' civil airport.. [1] In the year to March 2006 it handled about 17 aircraft movements a day, 94% of them air taxi, 4% general aviation and 2% military. [1]

History

The Japanese built a single runway here during the Second World War, and US bombing put it out of action. [1] After the Marines took control of the island, 300 men of the US Navy’s 48th Naval Construction Battalion made the airfield usable again in September and October 1945 and lengthened the runway, which then served as an emergency landing strip for the Tinian and Saipan airfields. [1]

The airfield

One asphalt runway, 09/27, 7,000 ft long and 150 ft wide, with an NDB on the field. [2] There is no control tower; Rota air/ground radio works traffic on 123.6 MHz. [2]

Sources

  1. Rota International Airport. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_International_Airport (accessed 2026-11-01). A short article: wartime history, identifiers and facilities.
  2. Airport data: GRO (PGRO), Benjamin Taisacan Manglona Intl. Federal Aviation Administration, Aeronautical Information Services, data effective 29 October – 26 November 2026. https://nfdc.faa.gov/nfdcApps/services/ajv5/airportDisplay.jsp?airportId=GRO (accessed 2026-11-01).
  3. dcs-world-schema reference data: Mariana Islands airbases (Rota Intl.json). dcs-world-schema, open-source data extracted by running DCS World 2.9.30.28536. https://github.com/YoloWingPixie/dcs-world-schema/blob/c3091e6c08fb8167e26145d0e33c10e4140c6fe7/dcs-world-reference/latest/airbases/MarianaIslands/Rota%20Intl.json (accessed 2026-11-01). With its beacon file, as tabled on the DCS: Marianas map page.

Wikipedia articles are secondary sources and can change; they are cited with the date they were read. FAA airport data and diagrams are official but are reissued every 28 or 56 days; each is cited with the edition read. pydcs mirrors the DCS terrain data at the commit linked.