Hope by the ton for a land in chaos

CHARLESTON, S.C. —

Early Sunday morning, a McChord Air Force Base C-17 touched down in Virginia to pick up a 14-wheeled truck, outdoor lights, generators and Army soldiers.

"This is one of the more complex loads that you will see," said Master Sgt. James Harp, an aircraft loadmaster. "It's got to be balanced just right. Too much weight in the front or back, and it won't fly."

This load totaled more than 100,000 pounds, and was one small piece of a gargantuan military airlift launched by the Obama administration in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 Haitian earthquake that ranks among the worst natural disasters of the past century.

Though sea shipments are by far the most efficient way to bring aid, Haiti's port is crippled. That has put the spotlight on the U.S. Air Force and its fleet of heavy-lift aircraft, now ferrying aid to the airport of the battered capital city.

Initial Air Force flights last week brought search-and-rescue teams with dogs, but this week there is a priority on emergency supplies, such as drinking water, and heavy equipment that can help unload and transport cargo, easing the bottleneck at the airport.

The 14-wheeled truck that was chained Sunday to the floor of the C-17, for example, has sophisticated equipment designed to offload pallets, and will be operated by Army soldiers — specially trained in airport logistics — who also came on board during the stopover at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base.

"This is the first load we will land, and it will take a total of eight planeloads to move all our gear," said 2nd Lt. Matt Reynal of the 688th Transport Detachment from Fort Eustis, Va., in a Sunday interview. "We expect to be there at least three months."

The soldiers buckled up in seats that pulled down from the sides of the aircraft, and joined a group of Northwest journalists who had boarded the aircraft upon its initial departure from McChord Air Force Base south of Tacoma. Inside, the C-17 has a high, ribbed ceiling that makes passengers feel like they're inside a whale's belly. Though the space can be slow to heat during flight, there was plenty of leg room — a minimum of 30 inches between the passengers seated along the side of the aircraft and the truck parked in the center.

Air Force workhorse

The flight, which returned later Sunday to America with evacuees, highlighted the versatility of the C-17.

First deployed by the Air Force in the 1990s, the Boeing-built jet aircraft cost about $200 million each and cruise at speeds about 575 mph.

These aircraft can haul up to 85 tons of cargo. In emergencies such as the Haitian evacuations, an aircrew then can turn the cargo bay into a passenger deck to transport more than 200 people, secured in place by long white belts stretched side to side across the aircraft. The C-17s can also be used to transport the gravely wounded, with posts set up on the cargo deck to hold litters in place.

Global flight control

The deployment of aircraft is coordinated out of Scott Air Force Base, in Illinois, which acts as a traffic-control center, matching planes and flight crews flying global routes that frequently wing through Germany, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Though East Coast bases with C-17s closer to the disaster were first to deploy, McChord, with 43 of the aircraft, has one of the nation's largest fleets, and as of Monday it had four of the planes assigned to the Haiti mission.

These can be long missions. So the cockpit crews were expanded from the standard two pilots to three, and a second loadmaster was put on board. That enabled the first C-17s that left McChord on Sunday to fly up to 24 hours before their crews were required to take a break.

"I figured our squad would get involved and that I might end up going," said 1st Lt. Nate Moseley, part of a three-pilot team from McChord's 62nd Airlift Wing.

Moseley and the other crew members frequently fly on extended missions to Germany, Afghanistan and Iraq, but this was the first trip to Langley, Va., and the landing was complicated by strong winds and very low cloud cover.

On to disaster zone

The descent in the tropical twilight of a Haitian winter day, however, went surprisingly well. There had been reports of some aircraft having to circle for hours before landing, but on Sunday the C-17 pilots had only a slight delay before a bumpy touchdown.

The parking areas were jammed with an international air fleet, and in recent days more of the aid they bring is making it into the streets of Port-au-Prince, where thousands camp outside each night rather than return to homes destroyed by earthquakes. There also are plans this week for the Air Force to begin airdrops to get more supplies into hard-to-reach areas.

But the scale of this disaster is huge, and there was plenty of frustration at the airport as scarcity pushed up food prices and drove many to looting.

"The aid here is not getting to the people; it's just chaos," said Jimmy Raymonette, who was helping unload cargo at the airport.

The cargo included equipment to repair the damaged network of Digicell, a major cellphone company that serves much of Haiti. But the effort to restore more service has been put at risk by poor security.

Ghada Gebara, a Digicell executive, said the company just last year had built a sturdy headquarters building that withstood the powerful earthquake while everything around it crumbled. But that building has been under assault from mobs, and Gebara said Sunday she was frustrated by the failure of Haitian or foreign troops to provide help.

"We see plenty of armed men in the streets, and have been attacked twice," Gebara said. "We have an important piece of the Haitian infrastructure that we are trying to protect."

Within a few hours after landing in Haiti, the McChord C-17 had been unloaded and taken on more than 180 earthquake survivors with ties to America. They had been waiting in a long line that snaked around the edge of the parking area. Some were swathed in bloody bandages, and others were on crutches or in wheelchairs.

But thousands more seeking to depart had yet to make it to the airport.

"Apparently, there are literally fields full of people gathering at the point where the processing is done," said 1st Lt. Joseph Hurley, one of the McChord pilots.

After transporting the evacuees to Orlando, Fla., the C-17 crew continued on to Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina and bunked down for the night, some 20 hours since leaving McChord. After some rest, they expected to get back in an aircraft and fly more supplies to Haiti.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com