The U.S. Air Force used its largest carrier to transfer 50 tons of narcotics from a storage facility in California to a location where they will be destroyed.
The mission, called Operation Burnout, is the “largest recorded aerial transport of hazardous narcotics for destruction,” the Air Force Reserve Command announced. The operation, which occurred earlier this year and shared this week, utilized a C-5M Super Galaxy to transport 23 pallets and weighed about 50 metric tons. The materials were valued at an estimated $5 billion and were airlifted from March Air Reserve Base in California to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and were then securely transported to a facility in Indiana, where they will be incinerated.
“It’s really mission essential that we utilize the Air Force to be able to transport these drugs,” said Gerald Mapp, senior foreign integration advisor to the DEA for the Department of War. “We have to store this stuff once we seize it in an approved warehouse, but more stuff is always coming in. You have to look at fentanyl as a major problem—one pill can kill you. Taking these drugs off the street protects the American public, and we couldn’t do this without the Air Force’s heavy airlift capabilities.”
“If we had not partnered with the Air Force, we would have had to drive it across several states, which would have taken tons of manpower and days to do,” said Rashida Weathers-Hurst, section chief of laboratory management and operations for the DEA Office of Forensic Sciences. “Drug evidence is currency on the street, so it is definitely a high-security mission. The precision of military logistics and their ability to execute a mission safely makes this teamwork top tier.”
