No tower in sight
Staff Sgt. Daniel Travo, a combat controller deployed to Port au Prince Haiti, jots down grid coordinates Jan. 23 to be used for aerial resupply missions. Conbat controllers and other Air Force special operations Airmen were on the ground hours after a 7.0 magnitude quake destroyed much of Port au Prince, Haiti. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. J. Paul Croxon)
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and its surroundings Jan. 12. The quake toppled hundreds of structures; homes, businesses and schools were flattened, roofs lay intact on the ground. The blocks that once supported them now spilled into the street. The scene is overwhelming and looks as if the buildings were made from toy blocks scattered by the fit of a giant toddler rather than the devastated dwellings and lives of thousands of people.
One important building still stood, but quake damage made it useless when the work that used to happen there was needed. Without the ability to control air traffic, help could not fly in.
Before aircraft can land there has to be a voice on the other end of the radio talking to the pilot, feeding him information necessary for a safe landing. That voice usually belongs to an air traffic controller and comes from inside a control tower. With the tower destroyed, that voice was coming from a folding table beside the flightline and it belonged to an Air Force combat controller. When the country’s air infrastructure was damaged, these Airmen were on the ground within hours, talking to pilots and enabling the delivery of aid to the country through airlift.
“One of our primary jobs is to take over and set up an airfield in an austere environment and provide air traffic control for follow-on aircraft,” said Staff Sgt. Joshua Craig, a combat controller from the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron. “This is really just the same except we’re not getting shot at.”
Sergeant Craig and his fellow combat controllers stand out in Haiti. Even among the various uniforms from every service, multiple countries and the rainbow of relief workers, their island of folding tables and all terrain vehicles between the runway and taxiway is hard to miss. That island was set up hours after the quake hit Haiti and since then Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport or the airport in Port-au-Prince has been transformed.
Combat controllers turn a folding table into a makeshift air traffic control tower. Hours after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of Port au Prince, Haiti, combat controllers were on the ground talking in aircraft laden with relief supplies. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. J. Paul Croxon)
“In the initial days there were so many aircraft and so much humanitarian aid coming in, some compared it to the Berlin Airlift [when aircraft landed] every three minutes,” Said Sergeant Craig. “In the first days we got here there were aircraft coming in every five minutes.”
Landing aircraft is just one aspect of what combat controllers do. Once they talk to the pilot and he lands, the controllers need to find a place for him to park. This is no easy task when the aircraft are 747 jumbo jets and C-17 Globemaster IIIs and the airport is a the single-runway airport. Despite these challenges, Sergeant Craig and his fellow combat controllers used every available square foot of concrete, and even some spots in the grass, to get the many aircraft into Haiti, so they could be offloaded and get back in the air.
“It’s a small airport and we’ve got so many aircraft coming in it’s kind of hard to find the coordination between [radar approach control], who are the guys bringing them in [from where they are] out holding, to the amount of space we have available here at the airport,” said Sergeant Craig. “We’re trying to put [aircraft] in the grass, utilizing as much space as we can in the airport.”
Though it’s difficult enough to find space for the familiar aircraft, Sergeant Craig and the other combat controllers must also find places for aircraft they’ve never seen.
“We get birds in with types that we’ve never heard of,” he said. “We have to ask them, ‘what’s your wingspan, what kind of a bird are you, how fast are you?’”
Though the combat controllers turned an airport that used to handle 30 flights a day into one that was handling more than 100, they were not a permanent force. The nature of the job is to set up airfield operations and move on once a more permanent tower can be set up.
After more than a week of manning their folding tables, it was time for them to move on. The Kentucky Air National Guard set up and started operating a portable tower. Sergeant Craig and his fellow combat controllers ran through the routine that comprises most of their operations. They worked with the incoming air traffic controllers, divesting themselves of the operations they spent a week setting up.
“We’re probably going to take no less than 96 hours [working with incoming controllers],” said Sergeant Craig. “The first day we’re going to do it and let them watch. The second day they’re going to integrate a little bit. The third day we’re going to let them do and we’re going to watch. The forth day we’re going to let them do it all and we’re going to give them a hand if they need it.”
While some combat controllers worked to transfer operations to the newly arrived controllers, others, like Staff Sgt. Donald Travo, worked with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to set up delivery zones for potential aerial delivery missions. These missions are one of the quickest ways to get food and water to a needy populace; however, dropping supplies out of a C-17 requires finding a suitable location and very specific coordinates. Combat controllers are trained to determine both.
Instead of talking to aircraft from the ground, Sergeant Travo flew with Puerto Rico National Guard Blackhawk pilots looking for ideal delivery zones and if suitable for aerial delivery, record their coordinates. But accessibility, recoverability and the absence of agriculture aren’t easy to find around Port-au-Prince where farmland dots the countryside and the city lacks open areas large enough to drop supplies in.
By talking over the radio with the helicopter pilots he was able to establish which locations had potential and eliminate those that didn’t. Through this in-air conversation, Sergeant Travo could use the experience of the Blackhawk pilots to find and visit the most suitable locations. The helicopters then landed so Sergeant Travo could collect the coordinates needed to plan potential aerial delivery missions. However, each time the helicopters landed, the dust thrown up became a signal to the local people that some sort of aid activity was happening. The people swarmed around the aircraft and Sergeant Travo and pleaded for aid in French, Creole, English or through gestures.
Staff Sgt. Daniel Travo, a combat controller, works with an Army pathfinder to gather coordinates that will later be used for aerial resupply drops. Combat controllers like Sergeant Travo were key to getting aid into Haiti after an earthquake destroyed much of the capital.
Sergeant Travo tried to tell them to wait, that he was enabling aerial delivery and aid would come, but the language barrier and noise from the helicopter barred any communication. Leaving hurting, sometimes-naked people with only the promise of a possible air delivery, Sergeant Travo boarded the Blackhawk to move on to the next location.
“I felt bad for the nation for what they were going through,” Sergeant Travo said. “I wish we could have fed every one of them right there. It was hard to leave when they were crying for food but it felt good to know we would turn right around and do supply drops to them,”
Aid did come. Water, food and medical supplies made their way from around the world, sometimes aboard Air Force aircraft and sometimes aboard others. That aid made it safely into Port au Prince to be distributed throughout the region, sometimes drifting out of the sky. None of it would have been possible if not for the men manning a folding table on an island amidst the chaos.
