Sag Harbor pilot flies to Haiti's aid

When Sag Harbor artist Jonathan Nash Glynn heard about the earthquake in Haiti in January, he was one of the first private pilots to respond, just a few days later.

"I always wanted to use my plane in a humanitarian way, and when I heard about the earthquake, I felt compelled to help this poor country," he said. "I also knew that as a pilot who owned my own plane I had a unique opportunity to navigate more easily into rural areas than larger jets could."

Before he left, Glynn, 58, contacted an orphanage near Jacmel, Haiti, and asked what they needed. He was told they needed formula for the babies. He also located an accessible runway where he could land.

He bought formula and other supplies, but the hardest part was making sure he would have enough fuel to fly the 18 hours from East Hampton Airport to Jacmel, since his Cessna 172 plane needs to stop every three hours, or about 300 miles, to refuel.

He flew to Miami and then to the Caribbean island of Turks, where the people gave him about 50 sandwiches to bring to the children. Once he arrived at the orphanage, he met a group of about 15 Americans from Cavalry Chapel in New Jersey, who were trying to get critically needed medical and surgical supplies from the Dominican Republic to Haiti's rural areas.

"I saw how I could help them by picking up these supplies and delivering them to Jacmel, but my biggest issue was how would I get and keep enough fuel in my plane, since my first week in Haiti they had no fuel," said Glynn.

He said the group from the Cavalry Chapel paid for the fuel in the Dominican Republic city of Barahona, where he flew to get the medical supplies.

He encountered problems flying to and from the Dominican Republic, including the high winds that pushed him toward the 9,000-foot mountains and forced him to use more fuel than expected. He also encountered cloud formations that blocked his view. But throughout his 17-day visit he managed to bring about $100,000 worth of medical supplies, including sponges, stents and antibiotics, to the rural areas near Jacmel.

"My next crisis was that I learned how there was no morphine or oral narcotics and that doctors were doing amputations without anesthesia," said Glynn, but he discovered there was morphine in Port au Prince. He flew there and met a pilot from Mattituck who helped him transport two tents full of medical supplies to Jacmel for the outlying areas.

Throughout his trip to Haiti, Glynn said, he saw "surreal" sights of body bags around his plane, people getting amputations in tents, and buildings flattened on the ground.

"In the hospitals people lined the corridors, and outside was the recovery area, in cardboard tents," he said. "One surgeon told me it made no difference whether he did the surgery inside or outside."

Glynn recently returned from his first trip to Haiti to raise more funds to continue his mission, called, "Wings Over Haiti."

East End communities are rallying to help him raise funds. On March 13 there will be a $30 benefit dinner and music at E.N.E. Restaurant in Montauk. On March 14 there will be live music and a silent auction benefit at Rowdy Hall Restaurant for $15 in East Hampton.

Donations will go toward Glynn's gas and maintenance expenses of $600 a day to operate his plane, and also for more medical and surgical supplies. For more information check his Web site at www.wingsoverhaiti.org.