FAA keeps plowing roads to Alaska navigation beacons as it retires others

The Federal Aviation Administration closed out last winter's contracts this month for plowing access roads to navigation beacons in Nenana, Talkeetna, Kenai and Utqiagvik, part of a network of ground radio beacons the agency has been shrinking across Alaska by retiring others.

The beacons, VORs and the older non-directional beacons, or NDBs, are radio transmitters pilots can navigate by without GPS. Each winter the FAA hires local contractors to keep the roads to some of them open. Last winter's orders were issued Oct. 29 and 30, 2025. After unused money was returned this month, they stood at about $12,000 for the road to the Nenana VOR, about $12,000 for the Talkeetna VOR, flight service station and Peters Creek NDB, $49,600 for sites in Kenai and $27,250 for facilities in Utqiagvik, according to federal spending records. Orders for this winter have not been posted yet.

Other beacons are going away. Since 2022, the FAA has revoked or rerouted a series of Alaska airways because the beacons they depend on are being decommissioned, including NDBs at Point Hope, Fort Yukon, Point Lay, Sitka, Nuiqsut, Wainwright and, most recently, Shemya in the Aleutians, whose route changes took effect Jan. 22. The FAA has cited the high cost of operating and maintaining the beacons. For one Point Hope airway, a radar traffic study found no aircraft without GPS had used it, and the FAA called the airway "essentially abandoned."

The retirements are part of the FAA's national shift to satellite-based navigation. By 2030, all NDB approaches and most of Alaska's colored airways are expected to be removed, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which supports the transition. Nationally, the FAA plans to keep a core network of VORs so pilots can still navigate if satellite signals become unavailable.

GPS interference tests have also been run in the state this year, near Fort Greely in February and March and near Eielson Air Force Base and Denali in August, according to FAA flight advisories issued to pilots.