Logistics

One old version of the Mercy Air brochure describes Mercy Air as 'maintaining a growing team of highly motivated pilots, mechanics and logisticians'.

Pilots and mechanics are quite easy to spot (either carrying a headset or a spanner) but what on earth is a logistician? If we ever wondered, we certainty found out recently when we were asked to help organize medical equipment to be sent up to northern Mozambique to furnish a new Covid hospital.

OK, so we certainly didn't have to do all the work. A mission doctor who had been working and living in Mozambique for many years had worked out what they needed, and had ordered what he couldn't get to be sent to us here in South Africa. Then the fun began.....!

The 600kg worth of equipment duly arrived to be stored it in our hangar, although unfortunately a few days too late to go up on the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flight that bought the first repatriation coffin down three weeks ago (http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2020/07/bitter-sweet.html).

In this new era of lock down, closed borders and general other travel restrictions, chasing paperwork has become a necessary and essential activity. It seems no-one is quite sure what all the rules are and then of course, there is always that new rule you didn't know about and which requires another piece of paper to prove you're compliant, or even a complete rule change to what you thought was the way to do something.

These twists and turns didn't allude us this time either. Even though much of the paperwork came with the goods, there was still a lot of arranging to do to make sure that the right information got to the right people at the right time. Even the MAF pilots had their fair share of the fun. After being told their flight pans were accepted, they arrived at the airport to be told that they needed a special document from the Ministry of the Interior, one that is normally only required for passengers - not crew. Immigration would not budge, so they had to re-route through Maputo which cost precious time.

Anyway, let's cut a long story short and just say that eventually, after two days,  they made it to our local international airport. We had ticked all the boxes to allow us to drive our Mercy Air truck onto the apron and meet them, together with an avionics engineer who did some quick tests.

Not quite like an F1 pit-stop, but certainly enough feverish activity to keep us all warm on a cool winters day.

The copper oxygen tubing was 5.5m long and only just fitted.

I promise they didn't fly back with it sticking out of the window!

The all important approval from the customs lady

Securing the load inside.

As we drove away

 

So, we now have a clearer understanding of what a logistician might do as a job. Whether we think that we also fit the description - that's another question.

Thank you

Paul and Cathy

Repatriation

Mercy Air has been called on to do a wide variety of tasks in the past - just scroll back through the last 15 years of blog posts to get an idea.

Some are fun, some are rewarding, some can be lifesaving. All of them help and serve people in some way or another, but these last two trips are perhaps the more sad flights.

We were asked to help repatriate a deceased person out of a neighbouring country. This time it was to fly a Turkish national who had been living in Lusaka, Zambia to Johannesburg, so he could then be flown home to Istanbul Turkey to his family for burial.

Again, the paperwork began weeks before the event and there were many emails, phone calls and forms to be filled out. Then there was waiting for replies, re-submitting, waiting again, waiting until the last minute (and even possibly a little beyond) for the final authorisation to be granted. The few lines mentioning it here goes nowhere near relaying the hassle and stress that is actually involved in bringing everything together at the right time! And then of course, you still have to go and fly it!

It turns out that Lusaka is quite a long way away - four hours flying in a mostly straight line in fact, and if you want to get there and back in a day, you have to leave quite early.

This wasn't too much of an issue and we were at our local international airport for fuel just as the sun also arrived.

So it also turns out that four hours in a mostly straight line isn't too exciting, but the highlight was flying over Lake Kariba.

Kariba is quite big, 30km wide and 280km long in fact, which is about the same distance as London to Leeds. Cathy and I once took a ferry from one end to the other and it took 24hrs. It's 5400km sq. and contains 180 cubic km of water. Not sure how you'd ever quite visualise that!

Here it is depicted on the Garmin 1000 map.

Once in Lusaka, I got to park with the big boys.

I'd like to report that everything went smoothly, aircraft was fueled, landing and nav fees paid, coffin was delivered and loaded and I was on my way again. The reality was somewhat different - very different. If you really want to know please Whats App or email and I'll dish the dirt on the occupational hazards of doing this kind of flight in the current world environment.

Let's just say that 'eventually' haz mat men came...

..as did a van with a coffin...

and it was loaded - with some difficulty - onto the aircraft.

All that was left now was 4h30 of mostly straight flying to deliver the cargo to Jo'berg International.

I enjoyed Kariba again for a second time that day and then, a few hours later a brief moment of excitement when I spotted a power line out of my window. I checked on the other side to see where it went and wondered if the Romans had had anything to do with its construction. I knew how it felt!

Eventually Johannesburg arrived and I was directed to my parking bay where some high viz guys helped unload onto a conveyor vehicle, for it to be whisked away to a Turkish Airlines A350 Cargo plane that had waited a couple of hours for me to arrive.

In sharp contrast to Lusaka, I was soon on my way again, but not before I had the chance to tuck a taxiing Emirates Boeing 777 under my wing.

After departure day...

..turned into evening...

..and then eventually night...

..before finally making it back to Nelspruit.

Despite the obstacles we faced, it was still worth all the hassle when you think that our efforts have helped bring closure for a family half way round the world, that we will likely never meet.

Thank you

Paul and Cathy