Naval Air Station Sigonella

The United States Naval Air Facility (NAF), Sigonella, was established 15 June 1959. Its first commanding officer was Captain Walter J. Frazier. The facility was conceived in the early 1950s, when plans to base U.S. Navy P2V Neptunes at Hal Far, Malta began to outgrow the facility.

When there was no room for expansion at Malta, the U.S. Navy obtained NATO backing to be hosted by Sicilians. Italy made land available under a temporary agreement signed 25 June 1957. Six days later, Landing Ship Tank (LSTs) began to deliver equipment from the Malta base.

Ground was broken in September, and construction on the administrative area at NAF I was started in 1958. It was built on top of an airfield where damaged fighters and bombers of the German Air Force had once landed during the Second World War. The first Americans arrived for work at Sigonella in March 1959—six months before any buildings were ready—and so worked for six months in Catania at a large warehouse complex called Magazzino Generale (General Warehouse), which is opposite the cemetery on the right side of the street as one enters Catania from the base.

By the end of August 1959, the NAF II airfield was available for daylight flights under visual flight rules (VFR); 24 flights were logged by 31 August.

One of Sigonella's first buildings was what is now the American Forces Network (AFN) building. In 1958, that building was Sigonella's vector (pest) control center, where rat poison was stored. The Army Corps of Engineers next used the building for their offices, later sharing it with Special Services, or what is now called Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR). Around 1966, AFN came to Sigonella and joined Special Services, which soon moved out, leaving the building to the broadcasters.

Sigonella's first flood occurred mid-September 1959. The Dittaino Bridge between NAF I and NAF II was under six feet of water on 20 September and all traffic had to go through Catania. Power outages accompanied the floods.

In 1965 the Italian Air Force sited at Sigonella the 41st Antisubmarine Warfare Wing (86st Gruppo and 88st Gruppo) with mixed crews from the Air Force and Navy.

In the 1980s, "Naval Air Facility" Sigonella was redesignated as a "Naval Air Station".

In 1983 the base was named after World War II pilot Captain Cosimo Di Palma (it), who was shot down by the Luftwaffe while on a mission with the Italian Co-belligerent Air Force and was honored with the Gold medal of Military Valor.

NAS Sigonella during flooding in December 2005.

On the night of 10 October 1985, there were tense hours on NAS II when the Italian Carabinieri, Italian Air Force, and the US Army's Delta Force came close to firing upon one another following the interception by US Navy F-14 Tomcat fighters of an Egyptian Boeing 737 airliner carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, which had been commandeered by members of the PLO on 7 October. The hijackers had killed a Jewish-American citizen Leon Klinghoffer. The F-14s instructed the Egyptian plane to land at Sigonella where the Americans had planned to take the hijackers into custody. The Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi instead claimed the hijackers were under Italian jurisdiction. The Italian authorities therefore refused to allow the SEALs to board the plane, threatening to open fire on the Americans had they made an attempt to do so. This move was supposedly dictated both by security concerns about terrorists targeting Italy if the United States had had it their way, and by the Italian tradition of diplomacy with the Arab world. The ensuing stand-off lasted throughout the night, until President Ronald Reagan gave the orders for the Americans to stand down.

A taxiway on NAS Sigonella

In late 1985, work crews belonging to NMCB 133 were repairing and installing sidewalks in the housing area at NAS I when they uncovered a small stockpile of Luftwaffe antiaircraft ammunition. The stockpile had apparently belonged to an antiaircraft position that had been buried during raids in the Allied invasion of 1943.[2]

On 1 April 2004, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) opened Defense Depot Sigonella Italy on NAS II to serve as a supply base for the Mediterranean. DLA also provides fuel and property disposal from NAS II.

Sigonella suffered its second major flood mid December 2005. Over 400 service members and family evacuated. In 2006, a newly installed protective berm prevented a nearly second consecutive year of flooding.

When NATO took military intervention to Libya in 2011, NAS Sigonella played an important role in US Operation Odyssey Dawn because of its short distance to the country. As Libya remained unstable in 2013, a Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force–Crisis Response unit was formed and an element of this was moved to the base to be within V-22 range of Libya.[3][4]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, most of the base including recreational facilities, daycare programs and the school were shut down to slow the spread of the Covid-19 Coronavirus.[5]

Flying and notable non-flying units based at NAS Sigonella.[7][8][9][10][11]

Units marked GSU are Geographically Separate Units, which although based at Sigonella, are subordinate to a parent unit based at another location.

• Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS)
• Mobile User Objective System (MUOS)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Naval Air Station Sigonella.

• NAS Sigonella, official site
• , official site 41º Stormo AMI
• Sigonella Community Support Group
• Google Map
• Current weather for LICZ at NOAA/NWS
• Accident history for NSY at Aviation Safety Network