By utilizing the C-5M Super Galaxy, the interagency team drastically reduced the risk of ambush, theft, or logistical failure.
By Catholics for Catholics
The United States Air Force has been aiding the Drug Enforcement Administration in destroying large quantities of seized narcotics, using its largest aircraft to transport the drugs to a secure location where they were extinguished, according to a story by the Epoch Times.
The Air Force employed its largest aircraft to move 50 tons of seized narcotics from a military storage facility in California to be destroyed. Operation Burnout, a combined mission by the Air Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), is the “largest recorded aerial transport of hazardous narcotics for destruction,” according to an Air Force press release on Jul. 7.
During the missions, the Air Force used A C-5M Super Galaxy, the largest aircraft in the military’s inventory, which can load cargo over 280,000 pounds (140 tons). The super plane was used from May 18 to May 20 to transport the $5 billion worth of illegal drugs, which were split into 23 pallets, from an air base in Riverside County to another base in Ohio.
The drugs include fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine. They were securely transported to an incinerator facility in Indiana for final destruction.
“Having the C-5 gave us the capability of a larger aircraft, meaning we could fly more seized narcotics and make a bigger impact on the crime rates,” said U.S. Air Force Major Benjamin Sperring, air mobility chief for Joint Task Force North.
Authorities say that by utilizing the C-5M Super Galaxy, the interagency team greatly reduced the risk of ambush, theft, or logistical failure while speeding the destruction process, according to the press release.
“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,” Rashida Weathers-Hurst, section chief of laboratory management and operations for the DEA Office of Forensic Sciences, said in the release.
“Drug evidence is currency on the street, so it is definitely a high-security mission,” Weathers-Hurst added.
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