By Capt Patrick Gignac | December 15, 2017 Estimated reading time 2 minutes, 38 seconds.
On September 16, 2017, a Mobile Air Movements Section (MAMS) team from 2 Air Movements Squadron left from 8 Wing Trenton, Ont., bound for Bridgetown, Barbados.
The mission for the short-notice deployment: to help load important humanitarian relief supplies to assist in Operation Renaissance, a Canadian Armed Forces mission to support Hurricane Irma and Maria relief in the Caribbean.
During the task the MAMS team helped evacuate Canadian, Dominican, American and British citizens from the affected countries. They also airlifted the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) of the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF) from Kingston Jamaica to Dominica, where the JDF provided direct relief to Dominicans.
The eight-person team worked closely with MAMS from the United Kingdom and, together, they delivered the supplies to many islands in the Caribbean, such as Grand Turks, Dominica, British Virgin Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands, to name a few.
They helped load and offload a wide variety of aircraft, including CC-177 Globemaster III and CC-130 Hercules from Canada and, from the United Kingdom, the A400M, Hercules, Globemaster and Voyager, and a contracted Antonov.
Overall, the team handled 64,000 pounds (29,000 kilograms) of baggage and 410,000 pounds (186,000 kilograms) of supplies in the Caribbean region, in addition to supplies shipped by the British MAMS.
Captain Gignac is the MAMS officer at 2 Air Movements Squadron.
