Turtles Fly Too Completes First U.S. West Coast Mission

On August 30, a crew of two pilots—AIN editor-in-chief Matt Thurber and aviation marketing/communications veteran Jeff Miller—supported by a team of wildlife experts, FBOs, air traffic controllers, and two aquariums flew an endangered olive ridley sea turtle from Seattle Boeing Field to San Diego International Airport for turtle rescue charity Turtles Fly Too on. This was the first U.S. West Coast mission for the turtle-rescue organization.

With Thurber flying right seat and monitoring the turtle, Miller piloted the flight of the turboprop single Jetprop DLX (a turbine-converted Piper Malibu Mirage), meeting the support crew at Seattle’s Boeing Field.

Berni the turtle arrived in a Vancouver Aquarium van after being driven across the U.S.-Canada border, and then the complicated loading process began, aided by the crew at Signature Flight Support. First, a modified large dog crate had to be inserted into the rear seating area of the Jetprop. Then the aquarium experts lifted Berni from the van and placed him carefully into the crate and installed a plywood top, well-secured with bolts and plastic ties.

The flight crew was asked to try to keep Berni warm, as turtles prefer warm climates. Berni had been rescued near Port Alberni (hence the name) near Vancouver Island in Canada due to cold shock from the northern waters, where olive ridleys normally don’t live. There wasn’t much else to do but get Berni to San Diego safely and quickly so he could be prepared to be reintroduced to the ocean.

The flight to San Diego was two legs, first from Seattle to Reno, Nevada, for a quick refueling by Atlantic Aviation, which kindly waived FBO fees. It took two hours for the flight to Reno, then another two hours to San Diego, and along the way, controllers would ask whether this was the “turtle flight,” likely because the flight plans were filed using the compassion flight callsign CMF1922.

San Diego Signature Flight Support was ready when the flight arrived, and the SeaWorld San Diego van was already there, ready with another special crate for Berni’s ride to the aquarium. The Sea World crew had brought a special padded jacket for Berni, which they put on before removing him from the airplane. Once removed, they put him in the crate and then drove him to SeaWorld, where he was weighed and measured, then put into a deep pool. Berni spent just over a week at SeaWorld getting acclimatized to the Southern California climate and then was released on September 9. Although the release had been planned later, the ocean around San Diego was so warm and Berni doing so well that it made sense to release him earlier.  

In addition to Turtles Fly Too, supporters of this mission included Ocean Wise Conservation Association/Vancouver Aquarium, SeaWorld San Diego, SR3 (SeaLifer3), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, Signature Flight Support, and Atlantic Aviation.

Turtles Fly Too first began operations in the Northeast, where every year as summer turns to autumn and temperatures fall, hundreds of the endangered reptiles, swept north on the warm currents of the Gulf Stream, become stranded in the Cape Cod region. Left alone they would soon die in the cold weather, but volunteers collect the turtles from the beaches and take them to the New England Aquarium, where their condition is stabilized. Available space at the aquarium is soon overwhelmed, requiring them to be evacuated to marine animal care facilities in southern states, where they complete the rehabilitation process before being released. Since its founding in 2014, Turtles Fly Too has helped fly more than 1,000 turtles via general aviation, and the charity is once again asking pilots who fly south from the New England area to register for its transport flight database.