By the end of October, we had settled in to our normal schedule, flying three days a week to Cap Haïtien and Santo Domingo, with the occasional medevac thrown in to keep things interesting.
The UN wanted us to fly to the southwest, but the runway in Les Cayes is a smidgen too short, which only left Jérémie as a possibility. Its runway is long enough, but size isn’t always everything, as we would soon find out. The UN asked Nicky and I to go and inspect the airfield. We couldn’t fly there in our aircraft until we’d done the inspection, so we hitched a ride in a Bangladesh Air Force Mi17 helicopter that was headed in that direction.
The Mi17 is not a pretty beast; not many helicopters are, especially Russian ones. But it is built like a brick shithouse and it gets the job done. UNO-122 is a people carrier, but has a military swagger and carries extra fuel in drop tanks that look disturbingly like bombs. We boarded with eight others bound for the UN Helipad at Les Cayes.
After a thorough briefing from the flight sergeant, the engines began to whine and the big fan above us stirred, bringing some relief from the humidity inside. When the doors were closed, the breeze was shut out. Beads of sweat slid down our faces. Small fans (rubber blades – no guards) were suspended inches above our heads. The sergeant flicked them on; the droplets dried to dampness. The helicopter shook, big blades beating the air into submission. We lifted off from the UN apron.
The helicopter flew south over Vivy Mitchel before turning west over the city and down the coast towards Grand Goâve. The downtown area of Port-au-Prince still bore the scars of the 2010 earthquake that struck seven years ago today. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption lay in ruins, kept as a monument to the disaster. Nearby an open lot marked the spot where the National Palace once stood.
Shantytowns spilled down to the water’s edge, hugging the tributaries and channels that carry the city’s refuse and sewage down to the sea. The press of humanity thinned as we moved further away from the capital and the coastline exchanged effluence for affluence. Properties grew in size until some had their own swimming pools and jetties. The transparency of the water was inversely proportional to our distance from the city, and by the time we reached the swimming pools, the sea was Caribbean clear, and reefs began to appear.
Before long, the helicopter dipped inland to cross the mountainous peninsula that is the south-western part of Haiti. A roofless house might have been the first sign of hurricane damage. But a closer look revealed a tree growing inside. About a quarter of the houses were unfinished: grey shells awaiting more blocks, cement, or enough money for a roof.
Only when we approached Les Cayes did we see the unmistakeable swathe of destruction from Hurricane Matthew. Palm trees, accustomed to the constant trade winds, lay scattered like matchsticks. The shacks that were still standing were mostly roofless; bright blue plastic sheeting provided shelter for a lucky few. Some of the bigger houses had already been repaired, their corrugated iron roofs glinting in the sun as we began our descent.
The helipad wore bruises from the blow. An uprooted tree lay in front of the terminal, while others leaned at precarious angles, all pointing north, accusingly in the direction the culprit had fled.
We touched down gently, the huge blades stilled and the whining engine silenced; one of the crew soaked two towels in ice water and took them forward for the pilots. And a few minutes later, while we were chatting to the commander on the landing pad, the engineer brought us coffee, served in china cups from a silver tray. First Class service. The best we could manage on our aircraft was a flask of tepid water and a peanut butter sandwich. We were going to have to up our game.
After the coffee break, we lifted off from Les Cayes and headed north-east, where the mountains were lowest and the clouds thinnest. The countryside there had succumbed to the tempest; denuded fields were strewn with broken trees, sheets of corrugated iron and a littering of treasured possessions.
Jérémie had fared no better than Les Cayes. From the air, the runway looked promising. On closer inspection its limitations were numerous. There was a settlement on one side of the runway and a small UN outpost on the other. The UN was providing potable water to the local people, who were forced to cross the runway to collect it. As a result, the runway was a local highway. There were no fences to separate landing airplanes from the stray goats, dogs, cattle, motorbikes and pedestrians that roamed freely. The few UN soldiers positioned to protect the helicopter landing pad had long since given up trying to stem the flow of traffic across the runway.
The surface wasn’t promising either. While some areas were firm and smooth, others were rough and stony and in places where water had pooled, the mud was as slick as goose shit.
Nicky and I prodded and poked and took pictures, but with each
passing minute we became more convinced that it wasn’t a runway we could use. Some fixed wing aircraft were landing there, but most of them were designed for the rougher conditions, with bigger tyres and stronger undercarriage. Although we both agreed that we could theoretically land and take off from Jérémie, the chances of an incident were too high to warrant the risk.
Back in Port-au-Prince, we wrote the report for the UN reluctantly, knowing that we had ruled out what might have been one of our more interesting destinations.
Great article. I know these pilots from work elsewhere in similarly difficult circumstances. I was always struck by their “can do” spirit, so that runway must have really been “no go” for them to rule it out.