page_title: Creech Air Force Base
section_title: Creech AFB
hierarchical_section_title: Creech Air Force Base / History / Creech AFB
caption_attribution_description: First MQ-9 Reaper makes its home on Nevada flightline: An MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle taxis into Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, March 13. It is the first operational airframe of its kind to land here. This Reaper is the first of many to be assigned to the 42nd Attack Squadron.
context_page_description: Creech Air Force Base is a United States Air Force command and control facility in Clark County, Nevada used "to engage in daily Overseas Contingency Operations …of remotely piloted aircraft systems which fly missions across the globe." In addition to an airport, the military installation has the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab, associated aerial warfare ground equipment, and unmanned aerial vehicles of the type used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Creech is the aerial training site for the USAF Thunderbirds and "is one of two emergency divert airfields" for the Nevada Test and Training Range.
  In addition to the airfield, the base includes the "UAV-Logistic and Training Facility", the Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence, Silver Flag Alpha Regional Training Center, and other military units/facilities. The base is named in honor of retired US Air Force General Wilbur L. Creech, the former commanding officer of Tactical Air Command, the predecessor command of the current Air Combat Command.
context_section_description: On 20 June 2005, Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field officially changed its name to Creech Air Force Base in honor of Wilbur L. "Bill" Creech, the commander of Tactical Air Command from 1978 to 1984, and activated in October 2005 the Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence and the 3d Special Operations Squadron (the latter was the 1st MQ-1 Predator squadron in the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). The 42d Attack Squadron was formed at Creech AFB on 8 November 2006 as the first Reaper squadron. By 2007, Creech personnel of the 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron had been deployed to Ali Air Base, and the base transferred from a Nellis AFB unit to the 432d Wing when activated on 1 May 2007 On 5 March 2008, the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron became operational as "the Air Force's [1st] test squadron for unmanned aerial systems". In 2008 the USGS added the military installation to the Geographic Names Information System (the airport portion of the base was separately designated in 2011).
  A 2009 Nevada Desert Experience protest against drone attacks on Pakistan by the United States of America resulted in the convictions of the "Creech 14" (e.g., Father Louie Vitale, Kathy Kelly, and John Dear) arrested on the base for trespassing and sentenced on 27 January 2011 for time served (a 2009 protest was also held.) In 2011, keystroke logging software had infected UAV ground stations ("believed to have spread through...removable drives"), and the Twenty-Fourth Air Force was alerted to the problem by an article in Wired magazine. (The virus "posed no threat to our operational mission".) In 2012, the ceremony in which the 99th Security Forces Group "stands down" also activated the 799th Air Base Group at Creech.
  In July 2019, the 799th Air Base Group was inactivated and responsibility for base support operations transferred to the newly activated the 432nd Mission Support Group, part of the 432nd Wing. The change allowed the 432nd Wing to become installation command authority at Creech, representing a shift away from the base relying on nearby Nellis AFB for support.
caption: An MQ-9 taxies on a Creech AFB runway
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