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Air Force agrees to move elephant on C-17

For a bunch of loadmasters, life will truly imitate art the day after Halloween, now that the Air Force has agreed to fly Maggie, a sick elephant, aboard a C-17 Globemaster from Alaska to California.

Consider it a tongue-in-cheek sequel to that 1995 movie “Operation Dumbo Drop,” starring Danny Glover. Those were Army guys, but the film was inspired by a 1968 special operations/goodwill mission that had U.S. troops ferry an elephant to a Vietnamese village for a sacred ceremony.

Forty years later, the real mission, dubbed “Operation Maggie Migration,” is set for Nov. 1.

The Alaska Zoo in Anchorage needs to move Maggie, an 8,000-pound pachyderm, to northern California, where Maggie will take up residence at an animal sanctuary. At 27, the zoo says the African elephant — said to be Alaska’s only elephant — is having some health troubles, and zookeepers think she’ll be better off farther south.

The zoo asked the Air Force if it would fly the mission, and the service said yes Oct. 25. The Air Force will fly Maggie from Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, to Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Elmendorf is home to the 3rd Wing and a C-17 squadron.

During the flight, Maggie will be packed inside a 10,000-pound, cagelike crate measuring 18 feet long, 8 feet wide and 10 feet tall — small enough to fit inside a C-17.

The Performing Animal Welfare Society, which runs the sanctuary near San Andreas, Calif., will pay all of the Air Force’s costs, an Air Force statement said. Estimates put the bill around $200,000.

While the Air Force typically only flies military and humanitarian cargo, the Air Force can help when commercial alternatives are not available, explained the service’s top general in Alaska, Lt. Gen. Douglas Fraser.

In 1998, a C-17 airlifted the killer whale Keiko, made famous in the movie “Free Willy,” from Oregon to Iceland. When the jet landed in Iceland, its right forward landing gear broke. An investigation determined that improper maintenance of metal landing gear supports had weakened the landing gear. The final repair bill was more than $1 million.

As for the Nov. 1 mission, there was no word as to whether the Air Force or the animal sanctuary will provide the shovels.

Discuss

Should the Air Force take on the Maggie Mission?