The United States Air Force used its largest aircraft to move 50 tons of seized narcotics from a military storage facility in California to be destroyed.
Operation Burnout, a joint 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.
A C-5M Super Galaxy, the largest aircraft in the Air Force inventory, which can load cargo over 280,000 pounds (140 tons), 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.
These illegal drugs, including fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine, were then to be 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.
By utilizing the C-5M Super Galaxy, the interagency team drastically reduced the risk of ambush, theft, or logistical failure while expediting 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.
The Joint Task Force North had to start planning months in advance, considering the complexities of hazardous cargo waivers, cross-country flight paths, and intense ground security protocols, and involving both DEA Special Reaction Teams and Air Force security personnel.
Gerald Mapp, senior foreign integration advisor to the DEA for the Department of War, said that recent environmental closures of major incinerators in California are the reason for the operation.
In 2022, California’s Assembly Bill 1857 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom into law, eliminating the diversion credit for municipal solid waste incinerators as disposal and creating a pathway to close down the last incinerators in the state.
The last two main solid waste incinerators, the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility in Long Beach and the Covanta Stanislaus incinerator in Stanislaus County, were closed permanently by the end of 2024.
“We have to store this stuff once we seize it in an approved warehouse, but more stuff is always coming in,” Mapp said in the press release.
A Texas-based aircrew implemented the domestic mission.
“Our assets aren’t just used for war,” said Major Ryan Becker, the mission’s aircraft commander.
“The DEA, Coast Guard, and local law enforcement do all the hard work to get this stuff off the street. We’re just the last step in helping them finish that mission,” Becker added.
