A remote island with no airstrip, a sick man in need of medical attention, and the clock ticking. Faced with this unusual challenge, the British army last week parachuted medical personnel onto Tristan da Cunha, its overseas territory in the South Atlantic Ocean, to help a resident suspected of having contracted hantavirus.

Marking the first time the British military had to parachute personnel to provide humanitarian aid, a party of eight, led by brigade commander Ed Cartwright, safely landed on the Tristan De Cunha golf course. Almost 3.3 tonnes of medical supplies were also air-dropped, in three batches.

Need for the operation

The unnamed Tristan-native patient had spent time aboard the MV Hondius, which had witnessed a hantavirus outbreak. The ship dropped off the patient at Tristan Da Cunha on April 14. He reported symptoms two weeks later. The Andes strain of hantavirus, which was reported on the ship, is transmissible from humans to humans.

Tristan da Cunha has a population of 221. Additionally, only a limited portion of the territory is inhabited, via the lone settlement labelled ‘Edinburgh of the Seven Seas’. For a society that requires every inhabitant to sign off on a new permanent resident, this virus represented an existential threat.

A 2,000-metre volcanic cone, the archipelago is militarily classified as a “non-permissive environment” for insertion. There is no airstrip, as there isn’t enough flat land for one. The only way to reach the island is a 6-8-day boat journey from Cape Town, South Africa, with the weather permitting.

In this case, as the patient needed urgent medical care and oxygen supplies, a week’s wait was out of the question. Enter the 16 Air Assault Brigade, colloquially dubbed as the British Army’s ‘Global Response Force’. Seizing airfields or often jumping behind enemy lines, the brigade has previously assisted evacuation missions during the Taliban annexation of Kabul in 2021 and provided disaster relief in Turkey in 2023.

Those missions were, however, involved a functioning airstrip.

To find a solution in this case, the RAF utilised a multi-stage relay:

The Fleet: An Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft and an RAF Voyager tanker departed RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and made their way towards Ascension Island, a British Overseas Territory located off the coast of South-West Africa. The A400M was specifically chosen due to its low-level delivery capabilities in high turbulence zones.

The Refuel: After a stop at Ascension Island, the Voyager provided mid-air refuelling to the Atlas, allowing it to reach the coordinates of Tristan—one of the most isolated flight paths on the planet.

The Jump: At roughly 5 kilometres offshore, the team was dispatched. A team of eight, the two ICU clinicians were strapped to paratroopers from the 16 Air Brigade. They then performed tandem jumps to ensure the clinicians’ safety, owing to the fact that they were not jump-certified troopers.

The Manoeuvre: With wind speeds exceeding 40 km/h (25 mph), a standard descent would have missed the island entirely. The jumpers tactically turned in the wind, essentially blowing backwards over the Atlantic to guide their chutes toward the only viable landing zone: the island’s local golf course.

Simultaneously, 3.3 tonnes of aid, including life-saving oxygen cylinders and ventilators, were dropped via Heavy Drop platforms. Designed to deploy large cargo from transport aircraft, heavy platforms can handle payloads of up to 20 tonnes and are compatible with heavy-lift aircraft.

Ejected in a batch of three, the supply drop landed in a nearby area known simply as the “The Patches”. An agricultural land used for growing the majority of the islanders’ potatoes, it is separated from the Edinburgh of the Seven Seas area, negating any risks to Tristan residents.

The island’s isolation

Famously isolated, Tristan da Cunha is located 2,400 kms from the nearest mainland, annexed by the British in 1816.

Enjoying the status of a British territory today, Tristan’s self-governing model is dependent on the UK for matters of defence, security and critically, emergency health interventions. As per the British Overseas Territories Act of 2002, the islanders are classified as full British citizens.

The uniqueness of the RAF mission is underscored by their utilisation of combat-insertion techniques for a medical emergency. The use of tandem jumps, mid-air refuelling and wind navigation in a humanitarian mission is highly unusual.