Certainly one of the hallmark contributions of the business aviation industry is its charitable work, from rescue missions and transport of products for disaster relief to providing a lift to a cancer patient or an endangered animal in order that they can lead higher lives. Here’s a small sample of their stories.
Angel Flight West’s Extra Legs
Angel Flight West (AFW) volunteer pilot Eric Chadwick went on a discovery flight in 2018 and was immediately hooked. “Angel Flight West was on my mind from the very first day of flight training,” Chadwick said. “I knew aviation was not accessible to everyone and that learning to fly could be an amazing strategy to further my philanthropic ambitions.”
Chadwick has been a volunteer pilot since 2020, helping passengers travel to their far-off care, with 47 AFW missions flown. Each flight has reinforced his decision to share his aviation skills and resources with the remainder of the world. “My first flight was with a baby battling cancer,” he recalled. “He’s had an incredibly tough journey, and I had the honour of flying him and his family to his medical appointment and back home.”
As an owner of a TBM 940, Chadwick often signs up for long-range missions that might typically require one or two stopping points. Just last month, he flew a passenger from Burbank, California, back home to Hamilton, Montana—greater than 1,150 miles when traveling by automobile. Knowing missions with multiple legs could be difficult to fill, he looks for trips during which he can mix each legs.
“Eric has been invaluable to our mission, all the time willing to go the additional mile,” said AFW associate executive director Cheri Cimmarrusti.
AFW has greater than 1,600 volunteer pilots and flies greater than 5,000 missions a 12 months. A nonprofit organization, it flies people to their medical appointments for gratis to the passengers. AFW also provides transportation for families and individuals escaping domestic violence, for therapeutic programs for kids and veterans, and to children’s specialty camps. This 12 months, AFW is celebrating two milestones: 40 years of service and 100,000 missions flown. To learn more or to donate, visit angelflightwest.org.
—Angel Flight West
Castle & Cooke Aviation Team Aids Maui
The Castle & Cooke Aviation team has been on the forefront of disaster relief for Maui within the aftermath of its devastating wildfires. With FBOs in Van Nuys, California, and Honolulu, we’ve partnered with long-time tenants Planet 9 and Rainbow Helicopters to support relief efforts while showcasing how vital general aviation’s flexibility is in times of crisis.
Our collaboration with Planet 9 primarily focused on transporting essential supplies from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii. Together, we loaded a Bombardier Global Express with relief items akin to water and toiletries. Moreover, along side Avfuel, we donated nearly 3,000 gallons of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel to assist reduce the carbon footprint of this critical flight.
Moreover, our dedicated team in Honolulu took charge of coordinating flights with Rainbow Helicopters, ensuring the efficient transportation of essential supplies to Maui. We’ve been supporting pop-up flights between islands and donating relief supplies.
Within the wake of this disaster, we’ve experienced firsthand general aviation’s crucial role in connecting communities during emergencies. These are flights only general aviation operations could have executed by way of unscheduled flexibility and geographic access. Our team has worked tirelessly during and after the heart-wrenching situation to facilitate these critical operations.
Those taken with contributing to Maui’s relief efforts can donate via Rainbow Helicopters’ GoFundMe page. All contributions directly profit the affected community by providing essential supplies.
—Tony Marlow, president of aviation operations and business development, Castle & Cooke Aviation
AeroAngel’s Christmas Gift
Most requests for AeroAngel flights don’t come on Saturday evenings, let alone the week before Christmas. But the decision from Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh was different.
A couple of months before, a social employee contacted AeroAngel—whose mission is to offer free business jet flights for seriously sick children going to and from medical care—to see whether we’d tackle a flight for a baby in need of a kidney transplant.
Jailyn, 9, who lived in Houston together with her adoptive family, desperately needed the transplant. Previous tries to get her to Pittsburgh in time had failed. She was out of options and in declining health. We accepted the request—a primary for AeroAngel—regardless that it got here with a really short fuse. Jailyn would wish to reach in Pittsburgh lower than 12 hours after the decision that a kidney was available.
Typical AeroAngel flight requests are for kids and young adults who cannot safely fly by business airline due, for instance, to a compromised immune system, physical disabilities, or the necessity to use small medical devices on a flight.
To be ready for the decision, our flight coordinator compiled a “call list” of potential donors from our network of flight donors across the country who offered to assist. When the decision for the flight got here in about 9 p.m. Eastern time, we scrambled to succeed in out to flight donors. Despite the late time, we had several viable options in two hours.
Early the following morning, a company flight department would fly Jailyn and her mother from Houston to Pittsburgh on one in every of its jets. As with other owners, charter operators, and company flight departments in our network, Jailyn’s flight donor did so anonymously.
Jailyn arrived on the hospital in time to receive a life-saving kidney transplant. Although her medical journey continues given her many health challenges, she is back home and living freed from weekly dialysis treatments due to a successful transplant.
With Jailyn’s flight within the logbook, AeroAngel has accepted several similar difficult requests along with the numerous requests it continues to receive for flights for kids having surgery or needing specialized treatment at a children’s hospital a thousand miles away.
—Mark Pestal, executive director and founder, AeroAngel
A Day To Remember for Luxaviation
Luxaviation UK previously partnered with Signature FBO at Luton Airport to host a bunch of terminally sick children, giving them a VIP experience of the private terminal and business jets. Sporting Bears Motor Club volunteers, dedicated to raising money for kids’s charities through social and touring events, arranged for the group of nine children and their families to reach at Luton Airport in a fleet of Bentley cars.
After being welcomed into Signature’s VIP lounge, the youngsters were escorted onboard one in every of Luxaviation UK’s Embraer Legacy 600 private jets for a 60-minute pleasure flight across the east coast of England. Upon return to the airport, the youngsters and their families enjoyed a lunch supplied by Signature.
All the youngsters and their families had a big day and were made to feel like VIPs, and the team at Luxaviation UK was honored to play a component in creating these precious memories.
—George Galanopoulos, CEO, Luxaviation UK
When Turtles Fly
Berni, an endangered Olive Ridley sea turtle, made history for the rescue charity Turtles Fly Too, completing a trek from Seattle Boeing Field to San Diego International Airport. The 2020 voyage was the primary U.S. West Coast mission for Turtles Fly Too, which was founded in 2014 to assist relocate the reptiles which are pushed into frigid northern waters.
Turtles Fly Too began its operations within the Northeast, where yearly as summer turns to autumn and temperatures fall, a whole bunch of the endangered reptiles, swept north on the nice and cozy currents of the Gulf Stream, develop into stranded within the Cape Cod region. Left alone they might soon die within the cold weather, but volunteers collect the turtles from the beaches and take them to the Latest England Aquarium, where their condition is stabilized. Available space on the aquarium is soon overwhelmed, requiring them to be evacuated to marine animal care facilities in Southern states for rehabilitation before released.
But Berni was found on the West Coast north of the Canadian border. A Vancouver Aquarium van drove the turtle across the U.S.-Canada border, before an advanced loading process began, aided by the crew at Signature Flight Support. AIN editor-in-chief Matt Thurber participated within the mission to relocate Berni, flying right seat to watch the turtle. Aviation marketing/communications veteran Jeff Miller piloted the flight of the turboprop single Jetprop DLX).
The flight crew kept Berni warm, as turtles prefer warm climates, and Berni had suffered from cold shock within the northern waters. The flight to San Diego was two legs, first from Seattle to Reno, Nevada, for a fast refueling by Atlantic Aviation. It took two hours for the flight to Reno, then one other two hours to San Diego, and along the best way, controllers would ask whether this was the “turtle flight,” likely since the flight plans were filed using the compassion flight callsign CMF1922.
San Diego Signature Flight Support was ready when the flight arrived, and the Sea World San Diego van was already there, ready with a special crate for Berni’s ride to the aquarium.
Turtles Fly Too this 12 months marked one other milestone, its longest, most complex rescue, involving a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle that was stranded in Northern Wales, UK. The multiple-continent flight, which entailed a special permit, transferred Tally to Texas for rehabilitation and ultimately release into the Gulf.
—Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief, AIN