Port as a landing site. In 1962 a PBY Catalina crashed near the port, killing 15 people on board. Helicopter era The tragedy was one of the factors leading to the decision to invest in a helicopter fleet. The Sikorsky S-61N machines—still in use in 2010—proved to be a more reliable mode of transport for the city, providing exclusive service for the Nuuk city for more than a decade—from the purchase date in 1965 until the late 1970s. Even in the later era of the fixed-wing, turboprop plane domination, the S-61N helicopters continued to link Nuuk with the smaller town of Paamiut, until the airport was built there in 2007, replacing the old heliport. Regional airport network Nuuk Airport was built in 1979, when the then newly formed home rule government decided to create a network of the STOL-capable domestic airports. The airport in the largest city in Greenland was a priority for the government, followed by Kulusuk Airport in Kulusuk in south-eastern Greenland, and Ilulissat Airport in Ilulissat, the largest town in the Disko Bay region of western Greenland. This constituted the first such wave of network expansion. Network expansion It was not until the 1990s that the network experienced another spurt of large-scale growth, when the airports in the remaining larger towns were built: Sisimiut Airport in Sisimiut and Maniitsoq Airport in Maniitsoq in central-western Greenland, Aasiaat Airport in the Disko Bay region, Upernavik Airport in Upernavik in northwestern Greenland, and Qaarsut Airport, an airport in Qaarsut, a settlement in the Uummannaq Fjord region; the airport serving both the village and the larger town of Uummannaq, located on the rocky Uummannaq Island. 2000-onwards The first international flights from Nuuk Airport were to Iqaluit in Nunavut, Canada. This connection was closed 13 years later, and for years afterwards international flights to Greenland were limited to Kangerlussuaq Airport in central western Greenland, to the north of Nuuk, an airport inherited from the U.S. Air Force when the former Sondrestrom Air Base was handed over to the then home rule government on 30 September 1992. With the airport being limited to serving small planes, the possibilities for international connections remain limited. Reopening of the connection to Iqaluit Airport was considered by Air Greenland in late 2009, but was later postponed until at least 2011. In order to compete with Icelandair, which operates services to Nuuk, Narsarsuaq, Ilulissat, and all airports on