Wings of Hope pilot, T.J. Stewart, will never forget the day he made an unplanned stop during his regularly scheduled flying medical clinics serving 24 villages in rural Tanzania. Usually, this village was the day’s last stop, but he had changed course to give a woman who had just given birth at the hospital in Arusha a ride back to her village. After dropping off the new mother, he prepared to take off to complete his rounds. Suddenly, he saw an elderly woman timidly approach the plane. The old woman’s niece had just miscarried and was behind a tree on the airstrip bleeding. Stewart and a flight nurse found her lying in a pool of blood and slipping out of consciousness. They knew getting her to the hospital immediately was her only chance of survival. So they lifted the young woman with blood dripping down her legs into the plane and flew her to the hospital. Their day had just begun. They had four more villages and hundreds of patients — mostly pregnant women and newborn babies — waiting for the airborne clinic to arrive.
Stewart spent three years flying the medical clinics in Tanzania — just one of many international bases the 52-year-old aviation charity Wings of Hope operates worldwide. Flying for humanitarian purposes has given Stewart a unique perspective on his love for aviation.
