Naval Air Station Meridian — also known as McCain Field, named after Admiral John S. McCain Sr. — is located in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, approximately five miles north of downtown Meridian. The installation has operated as a Navy primary flight training base since World War II, producing thousands of naval aviators and naval flight officers through its flight training programs. NAS Meridian remains an active Navy installation with training wings operating T-6 and T-45 aircraft.

Documented in Asbestos Litigation Records

Deposition testimony in publicly filed asbestos litigation explicitly mentions the Naval Air Station in Meridian, Mississippi in the context of industrial contractor work at the facility. The testimony asks whether a witness or his company “had ever performed any work out at the US Naval Air Station in Meridian” — establishing that the installation was recognized as a site where industrial contractors performed work, the same type of maintenance operations where asbestos insulation work was documented at naval shore installations nationwide.

Shore Facility Asbestos Sources

NAS Meridian’s facilities were constructed beginning in the World War II era and expanded through the Cold War, following Navy shore construction standards that included asbestos-containing materials in the postwar construction period:

  • Aviation maintenance hangars with asbestos fireproofing on structural steel and asbestos-containing roofing systems
  • Steam and hot water heating systems serving training facilities and administrative buildings with asbestos pipe insulation and boiler lagging
  • Barracks, BOQ, and administrative buildings constructed with asbestos floor tile, ceiling materials, and pipe insulation standard in Navy shore construction
  • Flight training support facilities — classroom buildings, briefing rooms, and technical training shops — built with asbestos-containing construction materials

Training Wings and Shore Duty Personnel

Aviation maintenance ratings (AD, AM, AE) and civilian maintenance workers assigned to NAS Meridian’s training wings maintained aircraft in hangar environments with asbestos-containing building materials. Shore duty personnel in administrative, medical, and support billets occupied base facilities built during the asbestos construction era.

VA Claims for NAS Meridian Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers shore-duty asbestos exposure at Navy installations. Veterans who served at Naval Air Station Meridian in aviation maintenance, training, or support billets before the early 1980s and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer should document their assignment through DD-214 records listing Naval Air Station Meridian, McCain Field, or Meridian, MS.