On the day the earthquake struck Haiti, Laura Mason received more than a dozen calls from international relief organizations for help. As the executive director of the Pilatus Owners and Pilots Association (POPA), Mason was in a unique position to support the relief efforts. She immediately began coordinating humanitarian flights to Haiti by owners and operators of Pilatus PC-12 turboprop aircraft from across the country.
“We’ve had at least 30 POPA members making humanitarian flights to Haiti, many flying repeat missions,” said Mason. “One of our members has been flying to and from Haiti for the last two weeks.”
The devastated infrastructure of Haiti, and distance from the U.S., put Pilatus operators in high demand among relief organizations.
“The PC-12 is the ideal aircraft for these missions,” said POPA President Bob MacLean. “With the main airport in Port-au-Prince locked down, the relief organizations needed to be able to get into the smaller airfields – with no lights, no tower – surrounding the city. They needed to be able to land on dirt airstrips. The PC-12 can do all that. It also has a large cargo capacity, the flexibility to carry people or supplies and it has the range to fly 700 miles to Haiti, hold before landing and return.”
Word spread quickly among relief organizations that PC-12 owner/operators could deliver aid workers and supplies to communities in Haiti that other aircraft couldn’t reach. In the first four days following the earthquake, 26 Pilatus aircraft were flying relief missions.
NBAA Member Phil Rosenbaum, working with both POPA and humanitarian organization Grace Flight of America, led a fleet of four PC-12s and pilots to Jacmel in southern Haiti on January 16.
“We were contacted by a 15-person medical team going to deliver emergency care,” said Rosenbaum. “They knew they couldn’t get into Port-au-Prince and they couldn’t do any good in Cape Haïtien in the north, which was not as badly affected. We could get them into Jacmel Airport, which had been cut off from Port-au-Prince.”
Rosenbaum and three other PC-12 pilots flew the team of doctors, nurses and 2,000 pounds of medical supplies to a mission and orphanage in Jacmel. Jacmel Airport is unlighted and uncontrolled, and had been damaged in the earthquake. C-130 military transports had difficulty taking off and landing there.
After delivering the medical team and supplies safely, Rosenbaum’s team helped evacuate 22 people made homeless by the earthquake to the U.S.
“At the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) FBO,” Rosenbaum recalls, “pilots who had just returned from Haiti were briefing pilots getting ready to leave on relief missions.”
The mission led by Rosenbaum is one of dozens of flights PC-12 pilots have made to Haiti in the last three weeks.
“We’ve had members volunteer from all over,” said MacLean. “Most from the East Coast and Texas, but we’ve had PC-12 owners and pilots flying in from California, Washington state, and even Canada.”
“I am receiving calls and emails continually,” said Mason. “We have been referred to as the POPA PC-12 Air Force!”
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.