The background and idea for Haiti-Heli

After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, numerous relief organisations mobilised supplies for the victims of the natural catastrophe. But the big problem continues to be the distribution of these supplies, since the transport routes are, for the most part, impassable and many regions cannot be supplied. There are currently no American helicopters available for the German relief organisations.

As a helicopter company specialising, among other things, in load and passenger flights, Heli Aviation decided that, instead of donating money, they would help directly on site. Heli Aviation has provided a helicopter and a four-man crew, consisting of two pilots, a paramedic and a technician. The only helicopter that came into consideration was the most powerful helicopter of the Bavarian company: the AS 350 B3, in order to effectively and efficiently clear the bottlenecks at the airports. This represents an aid package to the value of € 50,000.

The helicopter can transport external loads up to 1.4 tonnes and has a maximum range of approximately 650 kilometres. With the helicopter, doctors, helpers, medicines, water and other relief supplies can be flown quickly and directly to the trouble spots.

The transport problem

Heli Aviation asked many relief organisations, television and radio broadcasters and some ministries for support in bringing the helicopter, together with other relief supplies, to Haiti. This initially proved very difficult. In some cases, there were no possibilities for combining the transport of the helicopter with another freight flight. In other cases it was made clear that without well-known people, there was no interest in this private relief project.  The TV broadcaster ZDF endeavoured to organise transport from Brussels, but this unfortunately fell through because of a lack of capacity.

Following these disappointments, Heli Aviation tried to organise the freight flight on their own initiative and contacted the regional press. Helped by the regional media presence, luckily further contacts were found, some relief organisations and companies, who declared themselves willing to back the relief project.

In particular, BILD hilft e.V. "Ein Herz für Kinder" (Web) together with Humedica Internationale Hilfe (Web), Human Plus (Web) and Ärzte der Welt (Web) became involved in the transport of the helicopter and made the relief project possible.

Haiti-Heli also received warm support from Chapman Freeborn Airchartering Limited (Web), Honold International GmbH & Co. KG (Web), Logwin AG (Web) and IQS Spedition und Logistik GmbH (Web) in realising and organising the transport.