Haiti From 15,000 Feet
I just got back from Haiti and the country looked pretty good, as near as I could tell.
Unfortunately, my view was from 15,000 feet up, close enough to see Haiti’s unrealized potential as a tropical paradise, but too high to get any real perspective on the cruel fate that has befallen the cursed half of the island of Hispaniola.
OC-135 “Open Skies” aircraft, LoD Photo
My one-day inspection flight over Haiti came about when I heard from a friend in the Air Force that a OC-135 reconnaissance plane would be extensively photographing the impact are of the 7.0 quake that devastated the poverty-stricken country Tuesday. I managed to hitch a ride on the flight from Andrews Air Force Base, hoping to get a better idea of the scale of the destruction.
I had been to Haiti the 1990s, so I knew firsthand it’s barely functioning government and social institutions was completely ill-equipped to respond to a disaster of this magnitude.
The plane I was on was an aging military version of the old Boeing 707, outfitted with Cold-War era film cameras, and windows on the bottom of the tail section, to accommodate the taking of thousands of reconnaissance photos at a time. The plane usual mission is monitoring compliance with the 2002 “Open Skies” treaty, and in fact the name, “Open Skies” is painted on the tail, next to the tail number.
We arrive over Haiti after a four-hour flight from Washington. From the air the country looks beautiful. Jewel tone waters caress the miles of beach. Rugged rounded mountains have a pleasant green tinge from the tropical trees and plants.
There are few signs of the destructive friction that just occurred between the two tectonic plates that meet at this very spot of the Earth’s crust.
At first we can’t fly over the Port-au-Prince. There is too much air traffic from relief flights that have been landing nonstop, since the United States took control of the airport.
When we do make a pass over the hardest hit area of the capital, it whizzes by so fast the shocking mosaic of shattered shanties is just a blur. Clearly if you want to get a feel for the devastation you would want to use a helicopter, not a jet liner. But our mission is not about getting me a close up look, it’s about building an accurate digital photo map of the country, that can be posted online and accessed by the Pentagon and State Department as they figure how best to direct resources to get Haiti back on its feet. Think Google Earth, but with imagery that’s current, not months or years old.
For three and a half hours we fly back and forth across the country, methodically photographing every inch. The plane follows a tight pattern with sharp turns at each end, like we were mowing a lawn.
As the crew does its work, changing out the bulking film cameras, with their spools of 6-inch wide film, I am jammed in a corner of the tail section shooting video with my tiny home video camera. My video, [See Video here] while visually stunning, doesn’t really tell the story. Down below people are suffering, and from my lofty view, I can’t even see them.
Before returning to Washington, we have a drop to make. All the films will be delivered to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. “Why film?” you may ask, in this age of digital photography. Well, as I mentioned earlier, the usual mission for this plane was monitoring the “Open Skies” treaty, and under the provisions of that treaty only certain kinds of equipment can be on the plane. Digital cameras are not on the list.
