Aircraft charter company plays vital role in sending aid to Turkish earthquake victims

Leading aircraft charter company, Air Charter Service, has arranged multiple passenger 和 cargo aircraft charters into 火鸡 和 叙利亚 to transport search 和 rescue teams from around Europe, along with essential humanitarian aid for the victims of the devastating earthquakes earlier this week. The first of its flights arrived on Tuesday morning 从西班牙 和 the UK government’s arrived later that day.

Early on the morning of Monday 6th February an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck southern 火鸡, near the city of Gaziantep, close to the 火鸡-叙利亚 border. Just a few hours later a second tremor, measuring 7.5 struck the country, only 80 miles north of the first. Both earthquakes caused widespread damage 和 have so far between them claimed more than 19,000人的生命.

Ben Dinsdale, Director for 政府 和 Humanitarian Services at ACS, said of the situation: “We started receiving calls from both governments 和 NGOs later in the morning last Monday. Following some research we ascertained that Gaziantep Airport – closest to the epicentre – was fortunately, still fully functional. This was ideal for search 和 rescue teams, but that meant that it would become exceptionally busy very quickly 和, with limited loading equipment, was not the best choice for our cargo charters. 亚达那, 然而, had more room as well as a highloader available 和 Damascus in 叙利亚 also had good availability of loading equipment.

“By Tuesday morning we had our first representative on the ground at Gaziantep Airport overseeing the arrival of our first flight – a chartered Airbus A330-200 from 德国, carrying a search 和 rescue team on board. Later in the day the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development 办公室’s first search 和 rescue team, including dogs, to the affected areas arrived on board another Airbus A330-200, which was also carrying vital cargo in its hold.

“So far we have had several aircraft l和 in Gaziantep with search 和 rescue teams from around Europe. Towards the end of last week we started flying in cargo charters, the first of which arrived into 亚达那, 从西班牙, on Thursday on a Boeing B747-400 carrying an entire field hospital. Since then we have arranged multiple charters on aircraft including IL-76, B737, B747, B757 和 B777 into 亚达那 和 Damascus, as well as one each to Incirlik Air Base, in 火鸡 和 Aleppo, 叙利亚.

“Having someone on the ground in Gaziantep so soon after the initial earthquake was a huge help in coordinating the passenger charters we have had going in. He had to sleep at the airport itself 和 was available to assist with all our flights at any hour of the day. With many of the cargo flights now going into 亚达那, we now also flown someone in to oversee everything there.”