The earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday, January 12 highlights how aviation has transformed the world. One hundred years ago, people hearing about such an event would be able to provide aid, at the soonest, after about a month. It did not surprise me to find out that the U.S. military was in Haiti within a day or two with ships, cargo planes, soldiers, and supplies. What shocked me was hearing about a group of doctors, nurses, and search/rescue personnel from Israel who arrived on Friday, January 15 in two standard Boeing 747s (story). By Saturday morning, January 16, at 10 am, they had set up a 40-bed hospital and were treating patients. Starting from halfway around the world, in less than four full days, a group of 220 people managed to fit themselves and a hospital kit into just two airplanes, fly to the stricken zone, land, unload, and set up.
Anyone who gets treated in that hospital might take a moment to thank all of the engineers who made modern airliners possible. Keep in mind that the first airplane flight over water was Louis Bleriot’s crossing of the English Channel in 1909, only 101 years ago.
[Can Israel spare the doctors? Israel has many more doctors per capita than the U.S., but envisions a U.S.-style shortage developing over the next couple of decades (story).]
[A different angle on the jumbo jet and medical care is the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital, in which the airplane is the hospital.]
Petroleum was the miracle of the 20th century that enabled aviation & everything else. Who knows if the next 100 years will be as miraculous now that petroleum is more scarce than the human labor it replaces.
Not only has aviation provided significant humanitarian benefits (such as the Israelis and others are showing), but also provided major political influences such as the Berlin Airlift during the Berlin Blockade of 1948 – 1949.