Five years later: Operations Tomodachi, Pacific Passage - Planning made all the difference

Published March 11, 2016
By Master Sgt. Thomas J. Doscher
18th Air Force Public Affairs

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- March 11 marked five years since a devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck Japan and the humanitarian and evacuation efforts launched in response.

Operation Tomodachi was U.S. Pacific Command's response to the Japanese earthquake, and Operation Pacific Passage was the U.S. Northern Command-led operation that evacuated 7,322 American military families from the island nation.

AMC, 18th Air Force and the 618th Air Operations Center played significant roles in both operations.

"As soon as it happened we knew it was a matter of time before we would be asked to assist," said Lt. Gen. Sam Cox, 18th Air Force commander. During Operation Tomodachi and Operation Pacific Passage, Cox was the commander of the 618th AOC. "When the order came we were ready. Mobility Airmen are always ready, and they performed brilliantly."

Within 24 hours, three C-17 missions were launched to support the response efforts.

According to 618th AOC records, AMC aircraft flew 127 sorties, carried 6,213 passengers and 816 tons of cargo in support of the response efforts. Refueling tankers, meanwhile off-loaded nearly half-a-million pounds of fuel to airlifters on their way in and out of Japan.

Mobility Airmen stationed in Japan responded to the disaster out of Yokota Air Base. The base became an interim landing site for 11 commercial aircraft that were diverted from quake-effected airports. Aerial Porters from the 730th Air Mobility Squadron supported nearly 600 airline passengers and crew members. The 621st Contingency Response Wing, based at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, was among the first units to respond, sending a team of aerial porters to Misawa Air Base.

As help rushed in, there was also an urgent need to move people out. The families of U.S. servicemembers had to be temporarily evacuated from Japan until it was safe to return. Operation Pacific Passage, was initiated just a week after the earthquake.

"Taking care of our servicemembers and their families is one of our top priorities," Cox said. "We wanted them to be able to focus on helping the people of Japan, confident that their own families were also being taken care of. Making sure they could do that was vitally important."

More than 7,000 displaced family members and over 400 pets flew into AMC bases and airports in the U.S.

Col. Darren Sprunk was the commander of the 570th Contingency Response Group at Travis AFB during Operation Pacific Passage. Currently deployed to Southwest Asia from the 618th Air Operations Center, he said he recalled the reception operation as a resounding success because of the tight bonds between the Travis leadership, Airmen and the local community.

"The reason for success rested on the existing foundation between the three wing commanders at the time who shared a tight bond, and was further strengthened by a community bond which provided enormous material support," Sprunk said. "These two factors truly set Travis AFB up for success."

According to Sprunk, the leadership at Travis AFB spent the days leading up to the operation planning for the arrival of the displayed family members and their pets.

"We spent the weekend between the event [earthquake] and the when the planes started flying planning for how we would support an influx of people," Sprunk said. "On Monday we got word from 18th Air Force that we were going to bring the majority of the passengers through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but not Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In the end, we ended up using both locations. SETAC got bottlenecked and that's when Col. (James) Vechery, the 60th Air Mobility Wing commander, got the call asking if we could help. He said 'bring them on.'"

Mobility Airmen at Travis, with substantial help from the local community, met more than 2,700 returnees during the operation. Sprunk said they wanted each one to know that they cared and would help them with whatever they needed.

"We had so many people who had been through so much leaving Japan," he said. "We wanted them to feel at home. It was always one of the wing commanders who greeted them. We even greeted them in Japanese. They knew they had the full focus and concern of the base leadership."

Cox said the two operations demonstrate the commands' ability to simultaneously execute the mobility mission while taking care of servicemembers and their families.

"Two of our most important objectives are to execute the mobility mission and to take care of Airmen and their families," Cox said. "Operations Tomodachi and Pacific Passage showed us how we can do both by always being ready to execute the mission quickly and effectively and by taking the same attention to detail we put into our operational missions and using it to care for our family members."

Sprunk said the lesson to take away from Operations Tomodachi and Pacific Passage is to plan for success.

"Plan early and even if it doesn't come to fruition, have it ready to go," he said. "What is prevalent in AMC is that we want to plan so that we're successful. Sometimes we spin up and it never goes anywhere, but in this case, you could do a hundred spin-ups, and if you execute one time, it's all worth it."