Air Force unit supports Pakistan flood aide

  • Published
  • By Luke Waack
  • JBER PAO
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The 732nd Air Mobility Squad¬ron, stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, provided support to Fort Wainwright Army units in support of the Pakistan flood relief humanitarian aide mission, earlier this month.

"We sent a team of folks doing joint inspection up to Fort Wainwright," said Air Force Maj. Andrew Scott, 732nd AMS aerial port officer. "They were actually the team that was on the ground inspecting the cargo that they loaded on to multiple C-5s then left out of this theater and went to Pakistan. It was direct for that flood relief.

The 732nd AMS also provided support at JBER, Scott said.

"We did some maintenance on some C-5s that were supposed to be going up to Wainwright - they had some maintenance problems and ended up landing here, and the 732nd Aircraft Maintenance Unit jumped in and got them up again so they could get on their way and start their round robin," Scott said, "Of what I think was five airplanes going back and forth between here and that theater, to get all the helicopters and all the people and equipment from here to there."

Air Force Staff Sgt. Christo¬pher Swartz was an inspector of equipment, Aug. 28 to Sept. 5.

"I did the joint inspection on the entire operation, which was 19 chalks, which equates to 16 C-17's and six C-5's worth of cargo," Swartz said.

In the joint inspection process, the owner of the cargo and the in¬spector inspect each piece of cargo to ensure it is airlift ready.

Safety items include but are not limited to checking vehicles for proper weight and marking with a correct center of balance and fuel tanks being drained to the correct level to fly aboard the aircraft, Swartz said.

"We (joint inspectors) also inspect palletized cargo, we check for proper restraint, is the pallet clean and serviceable, we check the bot¬toms of the pallets to ensure there are no holes or dirt, the last thing we need to happen is an aircrew needs to jettison pallets off the aircraft and they get stuck due to holes on the bottom which could jam the pallet up in the rail system on the plane," Swartz said.