A C-17 from Air Mobility Command’s 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, S.C., delivered 30,000 H1N1 personal flu prevention kits to six South American countries in early May. The US Southern Command-sponsored program was a preventive measure intended to enable first-responders to distribute the kits as needed in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua in the event the so-called Swine Flu broke out in those countries and to help contain the H1N1 virus which had spread across more than 30 countries. SOUTHCOM asked US Transportation Command for assistance and AMC’s 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott AFB, Ill., coordinated the mission, which took the Charleston crew about 36 hours to complete. (618th TACC report by 1st Lt. Justin Brockhoff; USSOUTCOM release)
The Pentagon plans to use U.S. Air Force C-17s and C-130s to deport 5,400 people currently detained by Customs and Border Protection, officials announced Jan. 22, the first act in President Donald Trump’s sweeping promise to crack down on undocumented immigrants and increase border security.