British paratroopers drop onto Tristan da Cunha to treat suspected hantavirus case
Key takeaways
- The island, home to 221 residents, has no airstrip and is normally accessible only by sea.
- Six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade jumped from a Royal Air Force A400M transport aircraft.
- The aircraft flew 6,788 kilometers from RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, to Ascension Island, and from there more than 3,000 kilometers south to Tristan da Cunha.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
A British military team parachuted onto Tristan da Cunha on Saturday, the United Kingdom's most remote overseas territory, to assist a British national suspected of contracting hantavirus, in the first humanitarian operation of its kind carried out by the British Armed Forces. The island, home to 221 residents, has no airstrip and is normally accessible only by sea.
Six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade jumped from a Royal Air Force A400M transport aircraft. Almost simultaneously, 3.3 tonnes of medical equipment were airdropped in three batches, including bottled oxygen, the island's supplies of which had fallen to critical levels. The personnel landed on the local golf course; the supplies, in an area known as the Patches.
The aircraft flew 6,788 kilometers from RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, to Ascension Island, and from there more than 3,000 kilometers south to Tristan da Cunha. An RAF Voyager carried out mid-air refueling. Weather conditions over the volcanic archipelago are particularly demanding, with average wind speeds frequently exceeding 25 miles per hour.