Air Charter Service Sending Rescue Missions For Turkey, Syria Earthquake Relief

Air charter brokerage firm Air Charter Service (ACS) has arranged several charters to serve earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria following the devastating earthquakes that struck last week. 

The charters are being used to transport search and rescue teams from Europe, along with humanitarian aid.

On Feb. 6, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck near the city of Gaziantep in southern Turkey, close to its border with Syria. A second earthquake struck a few hours later 80 mi. north of the first with a magnitude of 7.5. So far, both quakes have claimed more than 40,000 lives and have caused substantial damage, reports say.

ACS’s first chartered flight soon after from Germany, with another charter arriving the same day for the UK government. Both flights were operated on Airbus A330-200s, the first containing a search and rescue team on board with the second also containing a search and rescue team with dogs along with vital cargo in the hold. The second A330 was chartered by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. 

“We started receiving calls from both governments and NGOs later in the morning last Monday,” says Ben Dinsdale, director for Government and Humanitarian Services at ACS. “Following some research we ascertained that Gaziantep Airport—closest to the epicenter—was fortunately, still fully functional. This was ideal for search and rescue teams, but that meant that it would become exceptionally busy very quickly and, at the time, had limited loading equipment, so was not the best choice for our first few cargo charters. Adana, however, had more room as well as a highloader available and Damascus in Syria also had good availability for loading equipment.”

After initially sending search and rescue teams to Gaziantep Airport from around Europe, ACS sent several cargo charters on aircraft including B747, IL-76, B737, B757 and B77 aircraft into Adana, Turkey; Damascus, Syria and one charter each to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and Aleppo, Syria, it says. A Boeing B747-400 that arrived into Adana from Spain carried an entire field hospital.

Dinsdale went on to explain “having someone on the ground in Gaziantep so soon after the initial earthquake was a huge help in coordinating the passenger charters we had going in as well as letting us know that a maindeck highloader had arrived from Istanbul. He had to sleep at the airport itself and was available to assist with all our flights at any hour of the day. With many of the cargo flights now going into Adana, we now also have flown someone in to oversee everything there.”