USAF Investigating Remains Discovered on C-17 After Leaving Kabul

USAF Investigating Remains Discovered on C-17 After Leaving Kabul

Aug. 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force is investigating the events that led to a C-17 taking off with civilians clinging to its landing gear then falling to their deaths as the aircraft left Kabul, Afghanistan, amid a chaotic scene Aug. 16.

Videos of the C-17 departing have been seen around the world, with a mob surrounding it as it taxied at Hamid Karzai International Airport. Other videos showed at least one person falling after it took off. 

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is reviewing all information regarding the incident, in coordination with Air Mobility Command and other international partners. 

“OSI’s review will be thorough to ensure we obtain the facts regarding this tragic incident,” the Air Force said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased.”

The C-17, tail number 2-1109, deployed from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Deployed aircraft are regularly flown by aircrews from other locations. It landed at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 16 to deliver a load of equipment to support the evacuation of both American and Afghan civilians from the country as the Taliban claimed control of Kabul.

Before the aircrew could even offload the cargo, however, the plane was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians who had breached the perimeter of the airport, according to the statement.

“Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible,” the Air Force said.

Human remains were discovered in the wheel well of the C-17 once it returned to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. The C-17 is impounded to allow crews to collect the remains and inspect the aircraft before it returns to flight.

In addition to the review, AMC safety officials “are doing due diligence to better understand how events unfolded” to ensure current and future flight operations are safe.

“Alongside our joint force, interagency, and international partners, the U.S. Air Force remains laser-focused on maintaining security at HKIA to prevent a situation like this from happening again as we safely process Afghan civilians seeking to depart the country,” the Air Force said.

Air Force Releases 2022 Promotion Board Schedule

Air Force Releases 2022 Promotion Board Schedule

Aug. 17, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Department of the Air Force recently released its selection board schedule for 2022, establishing separate schedules for the Air Force and Space Force and moving up certain boards to earlier in the year.

The Air Force Personnel Center also announced the formation of a new developmental category within the Line of the Air Force for the selection boards.

For the Space Force, promotions from sergeant to master sergeant will be considered in May, followed by major through colonel in October and senior master sergeant and chief master sergeant in November.

“The October field grade officer board will be Space Force’s second consolidated officer board as a separate service,” said Col. Scott Arcuri, U.S. Air Force Selection Board Secretariat chief, in a release.

The Space Force is shifting to selection boards for all noncommissioned officers. In 2021, it replaced tests with boards for certain enlisted Guardians in E-6, E-7, and E-8 grades, though it only included those in the space systems operations field, according to Air Force Times. This upcoming year will mark the first time all candidates from E-5 through E-9 will be included, a Space Force spokesperson confirmed to Air Force Magazine.

On the Air Force side, the chaplain, colonel, and some lieutenant colonel boards will meet several months earlier than they did in 2021, “moving the colonels’ promotion boards earlier in the year to better align with the colonel assignment process,” Arcuri said.

Specifically, the chaplain boards will meet in late March and early April, some three months earlier than a year ago. The same accelerated timeline will also apply for all Line of the Air Force colonel boards. 

Candidates for colonel in the medical, dental, nurse, and biomedical sciences corps will meet with boards in June, also three months ahead of last year.

In the more immediate future, the board for lieutenant colonel candidates in the combat support developmental category will meet in January 2022, several months before the other developmental categories. 

This will happen, Arcuri said, to “address shortages in some LAF-C [Line of the Air Force-Combat Support] career fields.”

In March, the Air Force’s newest board will meet to consider candidates for lieutenant colonel in the cross functional operations developmental category. The new category is for “Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) who now have their own Air Force Specialty Code,” Arcuri said in the release. Candidates for colonel in the new category will compete in the same late March-early April timeframe as other LAF colonel candidates.

9 C-17s Arrive in Afghanistan to Help with Evacuations

9 C-17s Arrive in Afghanistan to Help with Evacuations

Aug. 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Nine C-17s flowed into Kabul overnight after the international airport opened, carrying in more U.S. troops for security and conducting evacuations of American, Afghan, and other third-country people following a chaotic day at the last U.S.-controlled position in Afghanistan.

“As we speak, we are continuing air operations, and air operations continued throughout the night,” Maj. Gen. William D. “Hank” Taylor, the Joint Staff’s director of operations, said during an Aug. 17 briefing.

The U.S. mission is to maintain the security of the airport, and the Pentagon is deploying more members of the 82nd Airborne so air operations can continue. This includes sending the 82nd’s commander to oversee security, while the overall commander of U.S. forces on the ground coordinates with partner nations to ensure security.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said local commanders are speaking with Taliban commanders outside the base to ensure there are no additional security incidents. On Aug. 16, U.S. forces shot two individuals “with hostile intent.” Since then, there have not been any other incidents and there have been no threats from the Taliban.

“HKIA remains secure,” Taylor said, referring to Hamid Karzai International Airport. “It is currently open for military flight operations as well as limited commercial flights.”

In addition to U.S. C-17s, international aircraft including United Kingdom and Australian C-130s and a French A400M have operated from the airport, according to reports and flight tracking data.

Taylor said if the security situation holds, the goal is to increase U.S. operations to one flight per hour with a goal of evacuating about 5,000 people per day. Kirby said during an earlier appearance on CNN that between 5,000 and 9,000 Americans are in Afghanistan, as well as many thousands more Afghans who worked with the U.S. and NATO. The bulk of these personnel are not at the airport, and neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of State have outlined ways to get them to the airport.

“The military tasks require securing the airfield, something we are absolutely focused on doing,” Taylor said, adding that any information on what’s happening outside the airfield would be coordinated by the State Department.

U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie visited the airport Aug. 17 to evaluate the situation and meet with leaders on the ground.

“I saw firsthand our defensive lay down and the work our forces are doing to efficiently operate the airfield while ensuring the safe movement of civilians and diplomats who are leaving Kabul,” McKenzie said in a statement.

The airfield is secure and open to civilian air traffic under visual flight rules, McKenzie said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, during a separate Aug. 17 briefing, said member nations have committed to flying more aircraft into Kabul to bring their citizens and Afghan partners out.

The “precondition for getting these other Afghans out is, of course, to have the airport up and running,” Stoltenberg said. “Many NATO allies are helping to ensure exactly that.”

Taylor said 500-600 Afghan forces are also helping to secure the airfield.

Stoltenberg said Afghan forces did not put up enough of a fight against the Taliban, enabling the group to advance more quickly than anyone had predicted and leading to the chaotic security situation on the ground. After the U.S. reached its agreement with the Taliban in early 2020 to withdraw, NATO nations followed suit because the alternative would have been more deployments for an open-ended war.

“When the United States decided to end its presence in Afghanistan, and the U.S. has been responsible for the majority of the Soldiers and has carried the brunt of the burden all the way, there [was] no willingness from other European allies, Canada, other partner nations, to replace or fill in after the United States,” he said. 

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 5:07 p.m. on Aug. 17 to include additional information from U.S. Central Command.

DOD Planning for up to 22,000 Afghans to Evacuate

DOD Planning for up to 22,000 Afghans to Evacuate

Aug. 16, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Defense and State Departments are planning to fly thousands more Afghans out of the country in the coming days, even as disturbing images of Afghans desperately attempting to board U.S. aircraft and flee the Taliban spread across social media Aug. 16.

To date, according to officials from both departments, roughly 2,000 Afghan citizens who assisted with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan have been relocated out of the country as part of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program in the past several weeks, officials from both departments said.

State Department press secretary Ned Price said another 1,600 individuals have been airlifted out of Afghanistan in recent days by U.S. aircraft. Those individuals include American citizens who worked at the Kabul embassy, SIV holders, refugees, and “other vulnerable Afghans,” Price said. He declined to break down the number of each category.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, is planning to establish up to 22,000 spaces for SIV refugees on its bases, according to Garry Reid, the lead for the DOD’s crisis action group for Afghanistan.

In the weeks before the Taliban’s breakneck conquest of Afghanistan, as the U.S. continued its withdrawal, several hundred Afghans approved for special immigrant visas were relocated to Fort Lee, Va., for housing and processing.

Reid said DOD is planning to establish additional spaces at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort McCoy, Wis. Other installations may be used in the future, he added.

Amid the chaos of Aug. 16, several hundred SIV recipients and their families were able to get on American aircraft and leave the country, Reid added. With thousands still waiting, though, the pace will have to increase.

“We certainly have a much greater requirement,” Reid acknowledged. “We are still in the process of bringing in forces. These aircraft, as space is available on the outbound, have been taking passengers, and, of course, this has been somewhat disrupted in the last 24 hours.”

In retaking control of Hamid Karzai International Airport, the U.S. also hopes to re-establish commercial travel, Price said, which could allow endangered Afghans to leave the country in another way.

Ultimately, Price added, the U.S. plans to evacuate “as many as we can” while maintaining a diplomatic presence in the airport—the American embassy has been completely abandoned, but Price said the goal is to maintain some sort of presence on the ground “as long as it is safe to do so.”

So long as that presence at the airport is maintained, Price said, the State and Defense departments will work to evacuate as many Afghan citizens as possible.

However, when asked if the State Department had reached any sort of agreement with the Taliban to continue operating out of the airport, Price demurred, saying that although there had been some “constructive” talks, “we are going to look for their actions, rather than listen to their words.”

Contracts Advance Skyborg Toward Becoming Program of Record on Time

Contracts Advance Skyborg Toward Becoming Program of Record on Time

Aug. 16, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Contracts worth a combined $20.2 million to Kratos and General Atomics for development of the Autonomous Core System of the Skyborg unmanned aircraft control system will propel Skyborg toward becoming a program of record on time in 2023, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center announced Aug. 16.

Kratos received $13.2 million for work on its XQ-58A Valkyrie, while General Atomics received $7 million for work on its MQ-20 Avenger. The Air Force did not say when the contracts were exercised. The work will support further integration of the Autonomous Core System (ACS) in the aircraft as well as experimentation in large-force exercises. The goal is to enter a program of record in 2023, confirming a timetable the program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft hedged about just last week.

Skyborg is one of the Air Force’s “Vanguard” pathfinding technology programs, seeking an artificial intelligence-enabled system to control unmanned aircraft in a future manned/unmanned aircraft teaming concept.

“These contract actions, while tactical in nature, are strategically important to this Vanguard as we continue to discover and learn how we will employ this advanced technology in the fight,” Program Executive Officer Brig. Gen. Dale R. White said in a press release Aug. 16. “The team has always been committed to transitioning Skyborg to a program of record, and we’ll be ready in 2023 as the Air Force prepares its FY’23 President’s Budget submission early next year.”

Last week, however, White hedged about whether Skyborg would be ready in that timeframe, saying timing would be based on funds available.

“I won’t say [2023] is not achievable,” White told reporters in a press conference Aug. 12.  “I will just say that it has to be balanced with all of the other requirements we have across the portfolio.” He added that there’s “still some amount of work that we want to do with respect to both the platform and the autonomy piece before we make that transition, and so we’re on a path to do that.” There is “commitment” from “warfighters and … requirements writers” that Skyborg will be part of the future force, White said.  

If the Air Force thinks Skyborg will “fit inside future budgets, certainly I think we’d be ready. I just don’t think we’re ready to commit to that right now,” he added. Leidos developed the autonomous flight control system, which White said is intended to be “platform agnostic.”

White indicated that USAF continues to evaluate how Skyborg-related aircraft will “fit into the overall picture of the force structure in the long term.”

The Autonomous Core System successfully operated a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger—the Air Force has an unspecified but small number of these stealthy “Predator C” drones—in a June “Orange Flag” exercise. The system had previously operated Kratos’s UTAP-22 Mako, demonstrating that the same system could fly different airplanes.

“Flying the Skyborg ACS on platforms from two different manufacturers demonstrates the portability of the government-owned autonomy core, unlocking future multimission capabilities for the joint force,” Air Force Research Laboratory commander Maj. Gen Heather L. Pringle said in a press release about the experiment.

The ACS will also be used experimentally on Boeing’s stealthy Airpower Teaming System drone, developed with Australia. White said the Boeing airplane will fly with ACS next year.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center said the next operational exercise with Skyborg will be conducted this fall.

AFSOC Commander Captures Mixed Emotions of Vets as Kabul Falls

AFSOC Commander Captures Mixed Emotions of Vets as Kabul Falls

Aug. 16, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

As C-17s and C-130s lofted thousands of Americans and Afghan nationals fleeing from Kabul International Airport, Air Force Special Operations Command chief Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife articulated many of the mixed reactions of the tens of thousands of American service men and women who served in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.

In an Aug. 16 post shared on the AFSOC Facebook page, Slife noted that he had served a third of his career in the Afghanistan fight, with the responsibility of “sending countless Airmen into harm’s way there, not all of whom returned to their families.” He began sending home the remains of friends and teammates under his command starting in 2003 and said he’s felt all the “highs and lows” of success, frustration, and loss on the Afghan field of battle.

“Like many, I struggle to make sense of it all,” Slife wrote. He acknowledged that there will be histories written that will dissect the strategies and tactics applied in the “cold, unforgiving light” of hindsight, but the experience is still “too close” for him to reach hard conclusions about it all.

However, there are a few things, he wrote, “of which I’m certain.”

First, “the Airmen of AFSOC have done what they were asked to do magnificently.”

“Valor. Sacrifice. Duty. All of it. I wake up every morning with a profound sense of gratitude to be associated with this command” and the Airmen who comprise it.

“Even today,” Slife wrote, AFSOC forces “answer the call” and do everything asked of them. “From Medal of Honor recipient MSgt. John Chapman to the still-serving squadron commander currently on his 19th deployment, AFSOC Airmen have done their duty magnificently.”

There will be “many hard days, … months, … year[s] ahead” for those who served, “often with deep ambivalence” about how they feel about the experience. Veterans will process those feelings “all the while continuing to deal with the physical, … neurocognitive, … psychological, … and moral wounds we’ve suffered along the way.”

He urged his troops and other Airmen to “talk about it” with chaplains, psychologists, and physicians, in order to “put your own experiences into some context that will allow you to move forward positively and productively.” Resources are available for those who’ve served and those still serving, he said.

To troops who can’t find resources through the Preservation of the Force and Family program, the Veterans Affairs Department, the base mental health clinic, the local chapel, the Airman and Family Readiness Center or Military OneSource, he advised, “ask your chain of command or message me directly and let us help you find the right avenue.”

The AFSOC team has been “through too much together … to try to process these very complex things on our own.”

Slife offered an extended quote from the beginning of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” which, paraphrased, opens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. … the epoch of incredulity, … the season of light, … the season of darkness, … the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Slife said, “I don’t know what it all means. But for now, the knowledge that doing one’s duty is its own reward will have to be enough.”

More than six thousand people forwarded or shared the message.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Joanne S. Bass thanked Slife for the comments, saying he had put into words “the feelings of many.”

Bass said she and her husband both served tours in Afghanistan “and have deep emotions about what transpired.” She has been thinking for days about the people she served with, the missions they performed, and “the friends I lost.”

Now, Bass said, “We must remain committed to ensuring the sacrifice that so many have made” continues to matter by “providing the best military advice to our nation’s leaders and through our unwavering commitment to the defense of our country. We owe it to our fallen brothers and sisters to come together now, more than ever, and see this through.”

Afghanistan Evacuations Resume After Chaos at Kabul’s Airport

Afghanistan Evacuations Resume After Chaos at Kabul’s Airport

Aug. 16, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Military flight operations at Kabul’s airport resumed Aug. 16 after a period of chaos halted flights. Images and videos circulating online showed desperate Afghans mobbing U.S. Air Force C-17s as they took off to evacuate Americans and others, as the Taliban reclaimed control of the country.

Hundreds of people crammed into C-17s. Videos and images showed one C-17 pushing through throngs of Afghans as it tried to get to the runway. People clung to the C-17’s landing gear, only to fall to their deaths as the aircraft left the Kabul airport.

Defense Department officials said during an Aug. 16 briefing that over a 48-hour period, the U.S. evacuated about 700 Afghan special immigrant visa, or SIV, recipients and hundreds of embassy personnel. The Defense Department could not provide specifics on the total number of personnel evacuated so far.

President Joe Biden, in an afternoon address from the White House, said the deterioration in Afghanistan unfolded “more quickly than we anticipated” as Afghan leaders fled the country and the military collapsed, but he insisted the drawdown was the right decision.

“We will end America’s longest war after 20 long years of bloodshed,” Biden said. “The events we are seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure Afghanistan—as known in history, the graveyard of empires. What’s happening now could just as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future, let’s be honest. Our mission in Afghanistan has … made many missteps over the past two decades.”

Biden ordered another 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne to Kabul, with more USAF C-17s mobilizing across the country to take in the additional forces.

U.S. troops struggled to regain security at the sprawling airport, which has a large military base on one side and a commercial hub on the other. Commercial flights halted at the airport as the military took over operations.

Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the director of current operations for the Joint Staff, said operations resumed late Aug. 16 as troops were able to clear the runway to allow C-17s to land. By the end of the day, up to 3,500 U.S. troops were expected to be on the ground. U.S. embassy personnel, evacuated to the airport the day before, “remain safe and are preparing to depart,” he said.

Satellite images showed throngs of people on the airport’s runway. American troops tried to control the crowds with concertina wire, warning shots, and vehicles. Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said that in multiple “security incidents” at the airport, troops returned fire at two individuals who shot into a crowd. U.S., Turkish, and other troops attempted to clear the airfield.

“We do not know how long this will take. … We obviously don’t want anyone else to get hurt, so we’re going to work methodically in the coming hours to restore a safe and secure environment,” Kirby said as military flights had just begun to resume.

The Pentagon plans to fly in the remaining forces and to use the empty aircraft to evacuate more people. If the airfield is clear and safe enough, more aircraft can flow in, ramping up to a pace of 20-30 sorties per day, with a capacity to evacuate up to 5,000 people per day.

About 22,000 more Afghans await the SIV process to depart.

U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. met with Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, on Aug. 15 and was “clear and firm in his discussions with Taliban leaders that any attack on our people or on our operations at the airport would be met swiftly with a very forceful response,” Kirby said.

Before airport operations paused, a procession of C-17s took off full of evacuating personnel while USAF tankers orbited above. One C-17, callsign RCH871, reportedly carried approximately 800 people late Aug. 15. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander retired Adm. James Stavridis tweeted that an Air Force general told him of the mission, flown by the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron.

Audio of a radio or other voice call apparently between the C-17 and a control center, posted online, includes the controller asking, “How many people do you think are on your jet? Eight hundred people on your jet? Holy cow. OK. Hey, well, good job getting off the ground.” The controller then confirms the aircraft is inbound to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. A defense official told Defense One the number was closer to 640, close to a new record.

A photograph posted on the unofficial “Air Force amn/nco/scno” Facebook page shows the interior of a C-17 packed with people sitting on the floor of the plane.

Air Forces Central Command and Air Mobility Command, when asked by Air Force Magazine, for any information about the ongoing airlift mission referred all questions to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Get Ready for the Next Generation of High-Performance Propulsion

Get Ready for the Next Generation of High-Performance Propulsion

Aug. 16, 2021

A brief history of aircraft propulsion, from piston engines to early jets, to turbofans, and now GE’s advanced entry.

The first airplanes were powered by piston engines turning propellers, and when gas turbine engines emerged decades later, they quickly proved able to propel aircraft higher, further, and faster. The cycle repeated itself with the turbofan in the 1960s and ’70s. 

Yet as dazzling as any new technology is when first developed, something better eventually surpasses it. Such is the case with GE’s Adaptive Cycle Engine, a new propulsion technology that can deliver either power or efficiency on demand. 

The adaptive engine design entails a three-stream architecture that comes together to improve thrust by 10 percent and fuel efficiency by 25 percent. Efficient thermal management capability—the ability to dissipate heat more effectively—also enhances combat effectiveness. 

Use of advanced component technologies—such as ceramic matrix components (CMC), polymer matrix composites (PMC) and additive manufacturing allows for the use of fewer parts. The results include lower sustainment costs for the F-35. The plane would have longer range and loiter times without the need for midair refueling, as well as increased speed and the ability to carry heavier ordnance payloads. 

“Cold War-era engines were designed to confront the Soviets on the Eastern Front in Europe,” notes David Tweedie, General Manager for Advanced Products at GE Edison Works. “The design focus was on squeezing out the most thrust for every pound of airflow.” 

Performance was valued over efficiency, because range was not a primary issue of concern. 

Following Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraq from Kuwait in1991, however, planners began to see range as increasingly important. Navy aircraft flying from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Gulf lacked the range to strike deep into Iraqi territory. Air Force fighters flying from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan needed to refuel as soon as they were at altitude. Yet the combination of stealth and precision munitions enabled the United States and its coalition partners to reduce Iraq’s army—then the world’s fourth largest—to shambles within weeks, setting the stage for a brief and overwhelming ground assault that followed. 

The world was watching. 

“U.S. adversaries were paying attention,” Tweedie said. They saw the value of stealth and performance, but also sought ways to counter those strategic U.S. advantages. “But one way to defeat stealth and precision is to force your adversary to keep its carriers and tankers so far away that tactical fighters can’t get to the theater of operations, can’t get close enough to conduct their mission,” Tweedie said. “That’s how our adversaries sought to negate our advantage.”

In partnership with the US Air Force, GE’s XA100, however, rewrites the book on aviation power. Turbofan technology can be optimized to do one of two things. Elongating the turbofan increases thrust, while broadening the engine’s aperture improves efficiency. The XA100 is able to reconfigure itself on demand, shifting from fuel efficiency for extended range and loiter times to high-thrust for air combat. 

For GE, it’s one more step in a natural progression. “GE’s launch into the aviation business matured and developed in the 1920s and ’30s so that by the time World War II came around, many piston engines were using GE turbochargers to help with performance,” Tweedie said. 

By then, both Germany and England began developing gas-turbine propulsion technology, but the British, focused with preparation for war, handed off their prototype to the U.S. GE tested its first turbojet in 1942 and its jet engines powered the F-86 Sabre during the Korean War and F-4 Phantoms and F-5 Tigers in the Vietnam War era. 

Engine development is cyclical, Tweedie says. “You apply research and development money into a technology for many years before you can harness it. Then you hit an inflection point, when you really start to understand the technology, and you can deliver massive improvements in the capability of your products,” he explains. “Eventually, though, you come to a point where the technology becomes mature and you need to do something fundamentally different.”

When that happened in the 1960s, U.S. researchers developed the turbofan technology that powers most of today’s leading aircraft. Now, half a century later, the United States propulsion industry is on the verge of another breakthrough. 

“We think that the same kind of generational leap is what we’re offering here with the XA100,” Tweedie says.

C-130 Carrying Disaster Assistance Team Deploys to Haiti for Earthquake Aid

C-130 Carrying Disaster Assistance Team Deploys to Haiti for Earthquake Aid

Aug. 16, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

A C-130 from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., went to Haiti over the weekend, carrying a team from U.S. Southern Command to assess the impact of a massive earthquake that hit the Caribbean nation Aug. 14.

The C-130 Hercules from the 19th Airlift Wing took off from Homestead Air Reserve Base, Fla., and arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Aug. 15. 

The 14-member SOUTHCOM Situational Awareness Team will work with American diplomats and disaster assistance personnel to survey and assess the impact of the 7.2-magnitude quake. The official death toll reached at least 1,297 on Aug. 16 and is expected to grow in the coming days.

The results of that survey will help SOUTHCOM to “identify U.S. military capabilities needed and available to support U.S. foreign disaster assistance,” the command said in a press release announcing the formation of a joint task force.

Other military aircraft have also deployed in support of the task force. The Navy is using its ScanEagle drones and P-8 Poseidon planes to provide aerial images of the areas affected by the earthquake. Four helicopters—two UH-60s and two CH-47s—will also provide airlift support for relief efforts.

The Air Force has assisted in humanitarian relief for Haiti before. In 2016, when Hurricane Matthew caused billions of dollars in damages and left many homeless, Airmen helped establish aerial ports and to transport food, medicine and other essential supplies. 

In 2010, when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, the Air Force formed part of a massive military response, airlifting in supplies, helping to evacuate affected individuals, and providing air traffic control as thousands of aircraft arrived with aid in austere conditions.