Former Elk Grove Village pilot among first to aid Haiti rescue effort

Capt. Gina Stramaglio has been in a few tight spots, having flown dozens of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan during her 12 deployments to the Middle East.

Chance landed Stramaglio and her flight crew in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, the day the 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit, leaving an estimated 200,000 people dead and roughly 600,000 homeless.

"I have seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like what I saw in Haiti," said the 35-year-old former Elk Grove Village resident, a pilot with the 458th Airlift Squadron. "It was devastating. It was very emotional to watch people struggling, to know that there was a sense of desperation outside the airfield."

Stramaglio said her squadron typically transports distinguished visitors and is used for medical evacuations.

"On that particular day, our mission was to drop off Air Force personnel in Port-au-Prince," Stramaglio said Monday from Scott Air Force Base in Southern Illinois. Stramaglio felt the quake as she touched down in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic 20 minutes after leaving Haiti.

As the Haiti relief operation began, her first mission was to transport personnel from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida to Port-au-Prince for the recovery effort. The crew then airlifted out an American woman with multiple leg fractures who had been visiting family in Haiti.

"The airfield was pretty chaotic," Stramaglio said. "Everybody was struggling to do their part as quickly as possible, but the infrastructure wasn't there."

A maintenance problem forced her to land in Kingston, Jamaica, where the crew stayed until the plane was fixed and their patient recovered enough to be transported back to the U.S.

"I was in the right place at the right time so that felt good," she said.

Stramaglio expects her crew will be sent back to Haiti soon to rejoin aid efforts.