Jēkabpils Air Base
airport in Jēkabpils, Latvia
Jēkabpils (ICAO: EVKA), also known as Krustpils, is an air base located 3 kilometres (2 mi) northeast of Jēkabpils, a town in Latvia. During the 1980s it was one of 17 airfields hosting the Soviet Union's tactical reconnaissance aircraft regiments.
History
Its exact founding date is unknown. Until the occupation of Latvia, the airfield functioned as the Krustpils airfield of the Latvian Aviation Regiment. Around 1935, a new reinforced concrete hangar and two-storey barracks were built. Before 1939 it was planned to open a Valsts gaisa satiksme air route Riga - Krustpils - Daugavpils, which, however, was not implemented. After the occupation of Latvia in 1940, the Gloster Gladiator fighters of the Latvian Aviation Regiment were redeployed here from Rumbula Air Base. During the Second World War, bombers of the Luftwaffe 1st Fleet (Luftflotte 1) were based at Jēkabpils airfield.
During the Soviet occupation, from 1962 it was home to the 886 ORAP (886th Independent Reconnaissance Aviation Regiment) flying Su-17 and Su-24MR aircraft. In 1984 the normal complement of the air base was up to nine MiG-25RB, 14 Su-17M3, 8 to 12 Yak-28R, and 3 to 7 MiG-21R. At the time, the aging MiG-21R and Yak-28R were being retired from service at the air base.
“Jēkabpils Air Base” enters the record as airport in Jēkabpils, Latvia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jēkabpils, Base and airport can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Jēkabpils Air Base” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jēkabpils, Base and airport provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2902118. Authority coordinates are 56.535, 25.892. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1939, 1940 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jēkabpils Air Base” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.