Naval Air Station Bermuda Naval Air Station Bermuda ( Kindley Field ) , was located on St . David ' s Island , Bermuda from 1970 to 1995 , on the former site of Kindley Air Force Base . It is currently the site of Bermuda International Airport . History . The US Navy moved its anti - submarine air - patrol operations from the old NAS Bermuda flying boat base , to the USAF Base at Kindley Field when its Martin P5M Marlin flying boat s were removed from service in the 1960s . They were replaced by Lockheed P - 2 Neptune landplanes , which could not operate from the existing Naval Air Station , which had no hard surface runway ashore . The US Navy took over the airfield entirely from the USAF in 1970 and the base continued to operate anti - submarine patrols , first with Neptunes , then with Lockheed P - 3 Orion s . In the 1980s , the P - 3s were occasionally augmented by carrier - based S - 3 Viking s operating ashore , as well as Canadian Forces ' Lockheed CP - 140 Aurora and Royal Air Force Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR . 2 aircraft . By the early 1990s , the range of submarine - launched ballistic missile s ( SLBM ) had so increased that Soviet submarines no longer found it necessary to come within range of Bermuda - based patrol aircraft in order to strike their targets in the USA . This was followed by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a general lessening of tensions between the now renamed Russian Federation and the United States . Reflecting these developments , the US Naval air detachment at Bermuda had been steadily reduced from a full squadron of Regular Navy P - 3Cs on six month rotations to an average of three P - 3B or P - 3C aircraft , primarily from Atlantic Fleet Navy Reserve P - 3 squadrons on 60 day rotations , plus the air station ' s own UH - 1N Twin Huey search and rescue aircraft . In 1992 , a scathing investigative report by Sam Donaldson , of ABC News , labelled the base as the ' Club Med of the Navy ' , because of its questionable use by senior military officers and DoD civilian and other U . S . Government civilian officials as a " de facto " vacation retreat . Subsequently , all three US Naval bases in Bermuda were slated for closure by BRAC . Except for the NASA tracking station on Coopers Island ( at the Eastern End of NAS Bermuda ) , all US facilities in Bermuda were closed in 1995 . The Bermudian government took over operation of the field in 1995 , being obliged to spend a great deal of money making it conform to international civil standards . This involved changes to lighting systems , fencing , and razing any objects over a certain height , within a certain distance of the runway ( which included both the former base commander ' s residence , and the hillock it stood on ) . The US Government still held the lease , which was for 99 years , however , until negotiations were completed regarding the clean up of toxic waste left behind . The cost of clean - up of all US Navy facilities in Bermuda was then estimated at $ 65 . 7 million , although that included $ 9 . 5 million for replacing the Longbird Bridge . Threats were made that , if the Bermuda government did not allow the US Government to wash its hands of responsibility , the US Navy would take the field over again and close it to all air traffic . The final compromise negotiated by the UK , Bermuda , and USA governments , which comprised an $ 11 million payment for the replacement of Longbird Bridge , has been denounced by many in Bermuda as a betrayal , but the field has now been transferred entirely to the Bermuda Government as the Bermuda International Airport . It was an alternative landing site for NASA ' s Space Shuttle . Areas for clean - up identified in 1997 by a private contractor were : The estimated cost was $ 65 . 7 million : The lands which hosted the base were formally returned to Bermuda in 2002 .