Air Mobility Command not only sends its transport aircraft around the world, it has specialist airmen at key facilities to ensure the transport and deployment process works well 24/7. AMC’s 732nd Air Mobility Squadron at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, is one such unit. Its airmen recently managed to send “the biggest group ever to deploy from Alaska off in only eight days,” says TSgt. Rafael Pena-Perez. The Elmendorf unit’s 270-plus airmen loaded 3,417 soldiers and 484,500 pounds of luggage aboard 15 commercial aircraft, in addition to 483 tons of cargo on four C-5s, and three chartered B-747s. On a yearly basis, squadron members process 60,000 passengers, maintain more than 7,000 transiting aircraft, and load 28.8 million pounds of cargo, bound for destinations in Alaska, the Pacific region, and points beyond.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.