Scorpion Bay

Fred Borrelli’s 1979 Cessna 421C landing at Scorpion Bay Airport in San Juanico.

El Aeropuerto de Scorpion Bay is a newly opened airport in Baja California Sur, Mexico, roughly two-thirds of the way between Tijuana and Cabo San Lucas. Two pilots from Southern California, Fred Borrelli and Phil Benham, spearheaded this airport’s multi-year development.

“I’ve been flying twins for almost three decades and have owned seven [Cessna] 310s. When I stepped up into the 421, a cabin-class airplane, I realized it was easy to get behind as I entered my seventies. So, I hired Phil [who also had significant experience flying in Baja], and he has done a great job stepping in on my airplane.”

These two figured that an airport would be a much-needed investment in the small pueblo of less than a thousand people, where Borrelli developed an oceanside inn, Scorpion Bay Hotel.
Due to the region’s remoteness, the runway is a pipeline to the small fishing village. The membership-only airport serves tourists coming to experience its world-renowned waves. It will be a critical asset in getting needed supplies to Borrelli’s hotel, Scorpion Bay Hotel, and others in town.

“It’s an interesting story because we are the first new airport in Baja in many years. There were other airports in San Juanico before this, including one in the middle of town, which was not kept up and closed. Another nearby airport was only about 1,800 feet long, with an extreme drop-off into a canyon. I looked into purchasing that one, but there was no way to fill in that drop-off and lengthen the runway. I decided to get 11 hectares, about 27 acres, which would be large enough for what we had planned. It took a lot for me to go to Mexico City, to start at the top under the Secretary of Communications and get a permit to build an aerodrome,” Borrelli began.

“Why did I do this? It gets down to one thing. It was about access for my friends and family to a place that can be dangerous to get to from the roads. It’s 14 hours from San Diego by car, and you go through sketchy places to get down here. I wanted safety for my friends, family, and the community here. God forbid a surfer breaks their neck, or a fisherman runs over their leg with a boat propeller; we can stabilize them and get them out in an aircraft. Before, many people would die trying to get to a clinic by car, which didn’t have much to begin with.”

It would take nine years from the initial thought of creating an airport to its opening in 2022. Presently, Scorpion Bay Airport boasts a 3,200-foot-long by 200-foot-wide hard-packed caliche (a hardened calcium carbonate material) runway. However, Borrelli and Benham could eventually lengthen it by 1,000 feet and pave it if future demand warrants.

“We began developing the airport in 2013, and it was a lengthy process to complete the runway, with many stakeholders involved. If you don’t have the buy-in of all the needed people up front, then it’s just not going to happen. We worked hard to keep everybody apprised of what we were doing, even when we had these incredibly long periods of nothing happening. You have to be persistent and keep it going because it takes time in Baja, and if you get too anxious or frustrated, you’ll drive yourself crazy,” Benham said.

“We had an initial operation date in December 2022 when we flew the 421 and landed here. All the naysayers had to say, ‘Wow, they did it!’ That was a huge day for us and set the tone for the future,” he enthusiastically added.

There was considerable work required to get to this stage, much more than there would have been for a similar airport in the United States. Government involvement greatly aided the effort, from the federal to the local jurisdiction.

The Scorpion Bay development team consisted of multiple parties, including a local architect, who helped ensure the conceptualization and construction stages went as planned.

“Our architect handled the whole project and was what we would consider a general contractor. Their name is on the project, so they want to ensure it gets built to his specifications. He helped us hire locals so that they would have employment in the region. It was amazing what they did to put the hangars’ roofs on, for example, in the middle of nowhere. The guys were using two ropes and a pole; there were no cranes or cherry pickers to hold anything up,” Borrelli said.

Benham provided an overview of one of the other challenges they faced when creating the airport’s infrastructure and selecting and grading acreage for the runway. The team
needed to move local fauna and flora to proceed with the development.

“Our biggest goal with the airport is to develop it with both the social and environmental concerns incorporated from the beginning into the plans. We wanted to have an airport that supports the local community, that’s there for emergency purposes, and we also wanted to be good neighbors and patrons of the environment. One part of our earth-centric basis was moving almost 1,200 plants off this property. Everything needed documenting; there were indigenous lizards, cacti of varying types, and other species. The environmentalists we paid for collected all these rare or under duress species and moved them to another site. We undertook this major effort before ever touching the dirt to create the runway.”

He continued, describing the construction of the landing surface. “The materials to put the proper surface together for a runway down there are critical. You don’t want it to be sandy or rocky, and there is a material called caliche, which is calcium carbonate material out of degraded clamshells. It’s very compatible. We were moving all the topsoil off the runway and thought we would have to bring in a lot of caliche, but we found a vein under the surface. It was fourteen inches under the surface, so we mined the caliche ourselves and surfaced the runway. The aviation gods were taking care of us in that regard!”

So far, the pair of aviators note that interest in memberships has been good, although they are currently working to bring the airport to the attention of more pilots. They say that the leading factor that sets them apart from other international and domestic airports is the care in creating the site.

“We are a legitimate and well-organized group. From the beginning, it was a very well-thought-out project.

Even though we are operating in Mexico, no one can say that we have cut corners or not paid attention to the details. The inspector who came out of Loreto, the comandante (local governing authority for aviation), has been in Baja California for over 35 years and has seen dozens of airports built. He told me this is the best-engineered and best-built airport he has seen in his career. We did not fail a single issue on our inspection for our final permit, between the fire extinguishers, the ramp areas, the fencing, the signage, and all of the things that usually get skimped on,” Benham stated.

“Right now, we have our two hangars built, and we are looking to build three more hangars that we currently have planned, with ten more approved in the future (designed to fit aircraft as large as twin turboprops). We recently purchased a nice VHF radio base and will add an ADS-B node to track aircraft coming to our airport. We also have a runway closure device system that we want to test out soon.”

Staffing the airport is surprising to some; it helps to ensure the safety of the pilots and aircraft that fly into the private facility. After all, the safety of those visiting was a foremost concern of Borrelli, who had hinted at the variable levels of personal well-being within the country – while also noting that San Juanico is a sleepy pueblo with “people who have hearts of gold.”

“Two full-time staff at the airport went to Loreto and took an airport management course. We are not a port of entry, but now in Baja, you need a flight plan when going from airport to airport. They will be able to manage every flight that comes in, ensuring that the pilot has a valid pilot’s license, the plane is registered to the pilot, and that there is a manifest for everyone on board.

We are required under law to monitor these things and provide a monthly report to the comandante. We are proactive in all safety regards,” Borrelli concluded.

For more information about the airport, including membership opportunities, you may contact the airport at fly@scorpionbayairport.com.