Cowboys & Angels

Not since the Berlin Airlift in 1948, when Western Allies flew 4,000 tons of supplies daily into the Soviet-blocked city, has the world seen as much need for airborne relief. A poverty-stricken island with little infrastructure and no building codes, Haiti seems poised on the brink of catastrophe. But general aviation has given people real hope. The Haiti disaster has demonstrated what aviation can do and how it can make a difference.

Making It Happen
At Odyssey Aviation, an FBO at Nassau Airport, Bahamas, pilots in jeans and T-shirts walk purposefully as carts overloaded with boxes labeled "IV fluids" and "exam gloves" are pushed to waiting airplanes, ranging from single-engine Cessnas to King Airs. The flight-planning room has a long queue, and pilots discuss such exotic-sounding locations as Les Cayes, Jacmel and La Gonave. This is base headquarters for the relief effort run by Bahamas Habitat (www.bahamashabitat.org).

The group was established to build homes and provide missionary work to islands in the Bahamas. When the earthquake struck, the group's executive director, Abraham McIntyre, went into action mode---he hasn't stopped since. "We're running Delta Air Lines and FedEx," laughs McIntyre, who isn't yet 30, "and I see no sign of stopping." He's running the show with Cameron King, a 23-year-old long-term intern and multi-engine commercial pilot, and Matt Hansen, another fresh-faced volunteer and experienced pilot. Since the disaster, more than 120 pilots have responded to their calls for help, 400 flights have been flown, and 250,000 pounds of supplies and 250 passengers have been carried to and from seven airports in Haiti. Pilots donate their airplanes and fuel (the FBO offers a discount to relief pilots), and volunteer to fly sorties. McIntyre, King and Hansen have moved into a warehouse hangar, and they put in 16-plus-hour days, coordinating flights and sometimes flying sorties themselves.

The Mission
Since the earthquake, many have fled the desperate conditions in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's largest city, where damage was at its worst. They've poured into smaller villages, but these outlying areas are unable to support the incoming throngs. The remote towns lack enough food and medicine, and the overrun orphanages and clinics lack even basic supplies. The people rely heavily on GA airplanes.

Each morning, pilots are briefed and airplanes are loaded for the long flight to Haiti. The donated supplies originate from a warehouse provided by Banyan Air Service in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Some airplanes also carry doctors or nurses. At loading time, everyone helps: millionaires, doctors, retirees and college students. There's a sense of camaraderie that I can't shake. I imagine this is why pilots who have flown in wars are so emotionally connected to their fellow crew members. These pilots all have looked into the hungry eyes of Haitian children. It's need that binds everyone together.

Gerry Frumusa has been flying relief for three weeks with his Piper Lance. His airplane is something of a celebrity because it can carry him, 600 pounds of fuel and 700 pounds of anything that fits, and can land on unimproved strips. When his alternator gave out midstay, Banyan shipped him a replacement the next day. A U.S. Embassy aircraft mechanic gave up his lunch breaks to help put the alternator in. "This whole thing is about people," says Frumusa. "One of these pilots could be wealthy, another one powerful, but everyone helps equally."

Then there's Charlie Zaloom, who came from Mattituck, N.Y., to volunteer his Cessna 180. Both he and Frumusa have been flying to less-secure airports, such as La Gonave. Between the two of them, they've flown some 15,000 pounds of supplies, much of it food. Both share stories of bringing rice, beans and cooking oil to people on the ground whom they've gotten to know personally. "This is currency," said Zaloom, holding a small bag of rice, "and sometimes you give someone a bag or two for helping you."

While people back home may be losing interest in something that's happening in a faraway place, GA pilots still are providing hope in many areas of Haiti. "For many Haitians, small airplanes are it," explains McIntyre. I hear stories of amputations being performed with only aspirin, and I'm shown photos of people with broken legs that had to be set using rebar from crumbled buildings. Pilots talk about orphanages and hospitals where children moan in pain through the night, without medication for limbs that have been amputated with hacksaws.

But GA has come to the rescue in a huge way. A Pilatus delivered an anesthesia machine that was donated by a medical group. Cessnas and Pipers carried hundreds of nested buckets with dialysis filters---originally designed to filter blood and urine---to remove contaminants from the muddy water many people drink, out of desperation. GA is bringing boxes of antibiotics to cut down on infections, and crutches for the thousands of new amputees. Volunteer pilots also are bringing in medical teams and surgical instruments.

The Flying
I'm in a Beechcraft Baron with Tim Ormsby, the owner of a trucking company in Fort Wayne, Ind. We're each nervous, since this will be our first trip to Haiti. Minutes ago, we were strangers; now I handle navigation and radios while Ormsby flies over seemingly endless waters. I review a yellow Post-it note on which another volunteer pilot, Drew Hollenbeck, has thoughtfully sketched a diagram of where we are to fly. We'll be following 20 minutes behind air show performer Michael Mancuso, who's volunteering his time in a Piper Navajo and is accompanied by P&P Editor Jessica Ambats.

The Haiti sorties have settled into a pattern: Most pilots fly from Nassau to the island of Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos chain, for fuel. It's a 350 nm leg over nothing but open water, with a second leg of some 300 more miles into Haiti. Relief pilots take life jackets and rafts seriously, knowing that the currents below could drift them to the Atlantic by the time a search aircraft arrives. That is, if the sharks don't get there first. We try to ignore these thoughts as we take in the incomparable views afforded by the Caribbean Sea, with its impossibly clear water and distant clusters of tiny tropical islands.

After "Provo" (the pilots' nickname for Providenciales), radio communication is sparse or nonexistent. Miami Radio loses us about halfway to Haiti, but it's crucial to stay clear of Cuba's ADIZ, or we'll be met by some fighter jets. Once into Haiti's airspace, it's "cowboy flying," as the relief pilots call it. "If you're IFR, you're handed off to nobody," says Frumusa, "and you're on your own." It feels like we're over a country that time forgot. We monitor each other on 122.75 and self-announce our positions.

The land below looks like something out of Jurassic Park, with 7,000-foot mountains poking into puffy cumulus. Mancuso and Ambats announce their landing into Les Cayes, Haiti's third-largest city, as Ormsby and I peer hard through the windows to locate the airstrip. We're here to supply an orphanage and two medical clinics, and there's a family of five and a team of doctors who need a lift back to Nassau.

Pulling up to the small ramp and opening the cargo doors for the locals to help unload the airplane, we discover a problem. The Navajo has a cracked propeller spinner bulkhead. The resulting vibration could tear the engine apart or cause something to break off in flight. It's a serious issue that would ground the airplane back home. But leaving the airplane overnight in this remote corner of Haiti isn't an option for Mancuso.

I notice little rivulets of sweat inching down his face, and it's not just the ubiquitous Haiti humidity. I know Mancuso is weighing the possibilities of what he's about to do: limp a wounded airplane above nearly three hours' worth of open ocean, after a takeoff with the possibility of engine failure. Ambats moves to our Baron, and we watch as Mancuso carefully runs up the engine and starts his takeoff roll.

Right after rotation, the gear comes up, and the engine looks like it's developing normal thrust. Mancuso banks the airplane immediately---to allow for a teardrop return to the runway in case of engine failure---in a brilliant bit of aviating. The Navajo starts to climb out toward the sea, and we take off minutes later. We stay in contact by radio, as Mancuso keeps an eye on his right engine. Hours later, the Navajo is back on the ground with a replacement part on the way, and Mancuso tells us he passed the time over the water peeling oranges. "Next thing I knew, two hours had gone by!" he laughs.

The Bond Of Service
The aid flights continue every day. Ambats and Mancuso travel to Jacmel where conditions are more desperate and graves are being dug for those who haven't even died. Other pilots return with harrowing stories of hunger and suffering. More than anything, our days in Haiti prove the flexibility and responsiveness of general aviation. Our time with these pilots has allowed us to see aid going directly into the hands of those in need.

Though I've returned to the United States, I am, mentally, still in Haiti. A night hasn't gone by when I don't return there in my dreams, flying sorties with Gerry Frumusa, Drew Hollenbeck, Tim Ormsby, Michael Mancuso and all the others. "It's like a drug," says Frumusa about the experience. "I'll never do anything in my life that will top this." Charlie Zaloom agrees: "Next to my family, this is the most important thing I've ever done." But none of these pilots want to be called a hero for what they're doing. Each is simply putting their skills to work helping others.