U.S. strike forces, augmenting the active duty air force bases and naval air stations in Florida in the event the crisis led to war. United States Air Force civil engineers from the Tactical Air Command (TAC) arrived at the airfield late in the evening of October 22 and proceeded to work around the clock. In one instance, TAC civil engineering personnel rehabilitated the aging petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) fuel farm and distribution infrastructure originally constructed by the Navy in the 1940s, bringing the facility to fully operational status in just 3½ days. Other airfield and air base support improvements were also implemented to support tactical aircraft operations. However, the crisis passed through diplomatic means and the airfield was never required to serve as a strike installation against Soviet and Cuban forces. In 1965, Coast Guard Air Station Miami transferred its aircraft and operations from its Dinner Key seaplane installation to the Opa-locka Airport, re-establishing CGAS Miami on site. CGAS Miami continues to operate on site with EADS HC-144 Ocean Sentry fixed-wing aircraft and MH-65 Dolphin helicopters. For the year 1963, Opa-locka was the 42nd busiest civil airport in the country by total operations count. In 1964, it was ranked eighteenth, in 1965, it was third, and in 1966 and 1967, it was second behind O'Hare. In 1971, it was down to seventeenth. In 1979, 551,873 operations were recorded, making it the seventh busiest airport in the nation. According to Sebastián Marroquín (born Juan Pablo Escobar), his father Pablo Escobar and cousin Gustavo Gaviria "did a practice run to test-ship a hundred kilos of cocaine in a twin-engine Piper Seneca plane. It arrived at Opa Locka Airport, a private airport in the heart of Miami used exclusively by wealthy Americans, without a hitch." Subsequently, he wrote, "because they'd already successfully landed a shipment there, for more than a year Miami's Opa Locka Airport was my father's drug-trafficking destination." Some of the 9/11 hijackers trained at the airport. On October 7, 2014, the Miami-Dade County Commission voted to change the name of the airport to "Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport" as part of a rebranding scheme of all Miami-area airports to include the name "Miami". Facilities The airport covers 1,880 acres (761 ha) at an elevation of 8 feet (2 m). It has three asphalt runways: 9L/27R is 8,002 by 150 feet (2,439 x 46 m); 9R/27L is 4,309 by 100 feet