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Air Serv pilot Bill Kelsey helps unload cargo with the aid of a local youth as U.N. workers look on in Iriba, Chad. |
It wasn't the kind of situation an American pilot often encounters.
Taxiing down a dirt airstrip near the Chad-Sudan border, Bill Kelsey found himself nearly face to face with a camel.
At first, it looked like the beast wasn't going to budge. But after a brief standoff, the camel wisely made way for the King Air 200, deciding not to run the risk of getting sliced and diced by the plane's propellers.
"We had a moment. We made eye contact," Kelsey recalled back in the office in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, later in the day.
Although camels may be the preferred means of covering long distances for those who live on eastern Chad's dry, dusty plains, the dromedaries aren't the best mode of transportation for foreign aid workers who must crisscross hundreds of miles to reach the 200,000 refugees along the border.
That's where Kelsey and Air Serv International enter the picture. In a country where paved roads are nonexistent outside the capital, the Warrenton-based nonprofit group provides critical air transport to United Nations staff and other humanitarian workers assisting needy refugees.
As villagers fleeing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan started pouring across the border last year, aid officials realized they faced a daunting mission.
"The difficulty here is the absolute total lack of infrastructure [and] the isolation of the place," Eduardo Cue, a spokesman for the U.N.'s refugee agency, said at an outpost in eastern Chad.
Air Serv President and CEO Stu Willcuts traveled to Chad in January and met with U.N. and Chadian officials to discuss the response to the exodus from Darfur. "It was obvious they needed help," he said.
Air Serv, which now has three planes in Chad flying under U.N. auspices, is supplying some of that much-needed help.
Its aircraft don't have the capacity to do things such as food drops. Instead, the group's fleet of small planes ferries around aid workers and delivers items such as vaccines, medicine and technical equipment.
"We fly high-value cargo and the people who run the programs," such as doctors and water-sanitation engineers, Willcuts said.
Air Serv also does emergency medical evacuations. Last month, after several aid workers were attacked by Chadian locals during a dispute in a refugee camp, Kelsey flew them out so they could receive appropriate medical attention.
Medevac services also are available to refugees.
Air Serv was founded in 1984 by a handful of pilots reacting to famines in the African nations of Ethiopia and Mozambique. Today, the group has a staff of 150 who work in Warrenton and in countries such as Chad, Congo, Afghanistan and Jordan.
From its operational base in Amman, Jordan, Air Serv flies 1,800 people a month to and from Iraq. This spring, it flew five hostages to safety following their release by Iraqi insurgents.
The group, which gets its funding mostly from the United Nations and U.S. government, is influenced by practical Christian values stressing help for the needy, but its mission remains secular.
Air Serv moved its headquarters from Redlands, Calif., to Warrenton in 2001. Willcuts joined Air Serv as its chief the same year, bringing nearly three decades of humanitarian experience with organizations such as World Vision and Save the Children.
The group has grown by leaps and bounds under Willcuts' leadership, more than tripling its total number of aircraft.
But Willcuts laments that the organization's growth is a reflection of the immense suffering in many parts of the world. "I would like to see us cease to exist," he said.
Among the things the group is proudest of is its spotless safety record, which Willcuts attributes to having top-flight pilots, mechanics and engineers over the years.
Air Serv pilots have an average of 7,000 flight hours under their belts. The group's headquarters gets an average of 10 calls a day from pilots looking for work, Willcuts said, so he can afford to be choosy.
Willcuts brings in six to 10 pilot applicants each month, testing their flight skills and interviewing them to get a sense of their motivations for wanting to work for the group. Those who are hired earn about half of what they could make in the private sector in the United States.
"You're not in it for the money, that's for sure. You're in it for the heart, you're in it for the service," Willcuts said.
Kelsey, 52, of Austin, Texas, is a good example. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he started learning to fly while in the service, but had a philosophical conversion and filed for conscientious objector status.
His application was granted and he received an honorable discharge in the mid-1970s.
Kelsey took up flying again in the late 1980s and signed on with Air Serv in 1997, working for two years in Mozambique. He now works stints as a substitute or during emergency startups in some new crisis spot.
He sees his work for Air Serv as a kind of "alternative service."
"As a pacifist, I am used to being considered naïve about the nature of evil and what good people must do militarily to counter it. So I have made a point of challenging my own beliefs by traveling and flying in these semi-war zones," he said.
"I study the causes and effects of these wars and stare the devil in the face, so to speak. On one occasion, I found myself walking on human bones in a church in Rwanda," he said.
Forty-one-year-old Willem Bouwer of South Africa took up flying six years ago, and now works for Air Serv in Congo.
"It's sad when you do a job but you don't love it," said Bouwer, who had farmed and worked in forestry before pursuing his dream of becoming a pilot.
Although he hopes to eventually become a commercial pilot, Bouwer said he finds great satisfaction in doing something that helps those in need.
Kelsey said his work for Air Serv has had a powerful effect on his life.
"After getting a round of applause from a planeload of Doctors Without Borders [staff] for a smooth landing on a dirt runway in Kissidougou, Guinea, after a turbulent flight through clouds, it is difficult to find meaning flying a successful businessman to a golf tournament somewhere back home," he said.
ON THE NET: Air Serv International: www.airserv.org
To reach RICK MERCIER: 540/374-5000, ext. 5637 rmercier@freelancestar.com
