MAF Pilots Resume Flights since Devastating Quake;
Bringing Aid to Outlying Towns
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) missionaries have set up a Port-au-Prince airport communications center connected to a GATR VSAT satellite system, supplying direly needed high-bandwidth communications to workers from at least 16 international aid groups that have arrived since the Jan. 12 Haiti earthquake.
Huntsville, Ala.-based GATR Technologies donated the use of the GATR system for the communications center, which is located at the offices of World Concern, a relief agency operating out of the airport. Dedicated phone lines are providing telephone service for the relief agencies, facilitating the distribution of emergency supplies to the millions affected by the quake. The center also allows wireless communications, Skype, voice-over-Internet protocol and email.
GATR satellite internet equipment setup
“The earthquake destroyed the country’s infrastructure, and communication problems have so hampered relief efforts,” said MAF President John Boyd. “The GATR satellite and communications center is greatly facilitating the distribution of aid to the injured, homeless and suffering in Haiti.
“Logistics and coordination that MAF is providing to the emergency relief effort is crucial to saving lives, especially in these early days following the Haiti earthquake and later as rebuilding begins,” Boyd said.
For the first time since the earthquake struck, MAF pilots in Haiti have resumed flights using the ministry’s three aircraft. MAF flights bring desperately needed relief supplies to outlying towns and return to Port-au-Prince with internationals that had been working in Haiti before the earthquake and are evacuating the country.
The United States Air Force, which controls the Port-au-Prince airport, is sending many humanitarian cargo flights to the MAF hangar there. MAF is helping planes refuel and clear cargo through Haitian customs, as well as unload the cargo into the MAF hangar, ready for distribution.
MAF missionaries’ homes sustained little damage and are housing relief workers from many agencies. Other MAF and relief staff are sleeping on cots in the ministry’s hangar. Cargo shipping containers are serving as offices.
