The US Air Force - Haiti Edition

The US Air Force blogging community is tiny, so I thought I'd add something I've noticed with the USAF regarding Haiti. I am not nor will ever attempt to be an expert in the US Air Force, hell I'm fairly weak at naval aviation which I actually do study. I do however know a lot about the US Air Force budget, which only slightly relates to this discussion.

But first, something else. This is a much bigger deal than the almost non-existent reporting on US television gave it. This is an important political statement by the EU, exactly the type of political support necessary to meet the enormous challenges ahead in Haiti.

The European Union on Monday played down suggestions of a rift with the US over the distribution of emergency humanitarian aid in Haiti, devastated last week by an earthquake that may have killed more than 100,000 people.

EU leaders expressed gratitude to the US for keeping open the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and said they had received no complaints from non-governmental organisations about the conditions under which aid is reaching Haitians.

The move came as the World Food Programme announced a major escalation of relief aid distribution on the half-island nation, with the giving out of 180,000 ration packs on Monday.

The UN’s biggest relief agency aims to distribute 10m ready-to-eat meals to earthquake survivors in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere. Within a month, the goal is to reach 2m people.

There had previously been some complaining by French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet about the job being done by the US at the airport, but apparently the French minister learned how to do the backstroke on Monday. I won't speculate who made the phone call and what was said, but I bet it was an interesting phone call nonetheless.

What was apparently lost on some observers thousands of miles from Haiti is the work being done by USAF Col. Buck Elton and Special Operations Group ONE. Twenty-four hours after a city of three million had its infrastructure destroyed, the government disappeared, and the UN humanitarian mission was decapitated by the earthquake; USAF Special Operations Group ONE had the airport open for use ready to support the largest humanitarian operation in the history of the Western Hemisphere from nothing more than a single long slab of concrete we call a runway.

People do realize that these USAF SOG 1 guys are basically some military dressed dudes in an open tent with communication gear, a few laptops, and if they are very lucky, a portable potty somewhere within walking distance - sitting out in the grass somewhere near the airport runway coordinating air traffic inbound from the entire world, right? Sounds like no big deal from thousands of miles away I guess...

They really are doing an amazing job - from Reuters.

Colonel Buck Elton, commander of the U.S. military directing flights at Haiti's airport, said there had been 600 take-offs and landings since he took over the one-runway airport's traffic on Wednesday, though 50 flights had been diverted...

Elton said the flow of air traffic was improving, with only 3 of 67 incoming flights being rerouted on Saturday, and only two flights diverted on Sunday.

The airport apron can only handle one wide-bodied plane and five narrow-bodied planes at a time, plus other aircraft that can be parked on the grass.

There is an Air Force issue to watch for. MSNBC reported on TV Monday that the rest of the 82 Airborne Division will have to be brought in on chartered commercial airlines, because there are not enough heavy lift aircraft to support the requirement. I have not seen a print report of this yet, but Andrea Mitchell said it on her show Monday.

The report suggested not all the equipment would be able to be brought in to Haiti immediately with the 82nd Airborne, and would come later. If that is true, then I suggest perhaps Congress should be exonerated for pushing for more C-17s and C-130s on top of the President budget requests over the last few years, and this should serve as a reminder that Secretary of Defense Gates has been wrong to push for the cancellation of those programs. The C-130 has been criticized over the last few years, but when I look on TV and see the runways, I see Coast Guard and Air Force C-130s basically carrying this US effort in Haiti.

To see more about US Air Force activities in Haiti, you can follow on the official US Air Force blog.