On Feb. 15, 2023, another first was accomplished for general aviation, when volunteer pilots flew 210,000 surgical masks out of Skagit Regional Airport (KBVS) in Washington to Canada.
The effort was a partnership between the West Coast General Aviation Response Plan Emergency Volunteer Air Corps (EVAC) and the British Columbia Airlift Emergency Response Operations (BC AERO) with three Canadian planes and four U.S. planes transporting the masks. BC AERO then was tasked with distributing the masks to the communities it supports.
The latest exercise “was another great accomplishment and further steps forward in GA’s ability to help when the ‘big one’ hits” or during other catastrophic events, reports Sky Terry, EVAC’s Northwest Regional Emergency Services Director.
This was actually a continuation of an initial donation of 1.4 million surgical masks from FEMA to EVAC from FEMA’s donation division, he explained. These were then donated to the Skagit Department of Emergency Management to give out to residents in the community.
“We cannot thank Skagit DEM enough for their amazing generosity in supporting more than just their own county as a member of the West Coast General Aviation Response Plan by sharing these surgical masks with BC AERO in Canada, which allowed this lift to even occur,” Terry continued.
He noted that this was the first Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) exercise at KBVS.
He added that you can see in the video that it was “definitely an early start as both pilots and ground crews where heading out to their respective airports before the sun was even up.”
To learn more about the efforts of volunteer pilots to help in times of disaster, check out this story, General aviation preps for when the big one hits.
Good article. Two days after 9/11 the organization I was chair of, Angel Flight NE , was in the air delivering supplies . We had to evolve our plan daily clearing with multiple agencies , communication failures of agencies alerting others to our airborne mission when the “system “ was grounded , etc. Landing at some airports evoked some interesting responses and experiences for our pilots.
We all , our nation down to our volunteer pilots, all learned multiple lessons from that experience . The result of 9/11 , if there could be somethings positive , is the support GA can provide our country.
Thanks for the article and highlighting how GA continues to evolve in support of national disasters from within and abroad