After arriving in Matanzas on Saturday afternoon, the air group Sancti Spíritus made its “dromedaries” available for the work of extinguishing the fire.

There are four M-18 aircraft, whose duties include firefighting.

“Before flying to Matanzas, we prepared the ships, the agricultural variant was modified and the one for putting out the fires was prepared to support here. We have four pilots and five technicians here, all used to working with this type of aircraft, with great experience. We are ready, we are waiting for the decisions,” he told the newspaper. Escambray Ernesto Cuéllar Rodríguez, director of the Empresa Nacional de Servicios Aéreos (ENSA) subordinate business unit.

Regarding the scenario in Matanzas, Cuéllar Rodríguez said that “it’s tense, here everyone depends on the situation, we could say that in first position, while waiting to try to contribute to put out the flames; yesterday on landing we had the opportunity to see the fire quite closely and we can say that it is complicated”.

With 35 years as a pilot and 20 years of experience fighting flames, Alejandro Martínez warns of the complexity of the event. Here’s how he told the Sancti Spiritus press: “This fire is more complicated, it’s an area with oil, it emanates a lot of gas, I can see it from here at Varadero airport, but we are ready, the four planes with the pilots and technicians awaiting the decisions of the State.

“I didn’t think about the risk, ours is to help solve this problem; we are prepared for this whole situation; the risk does not matter, we are ready to fulfill the mission and let the people of Sancti Spiritus know that we will fulfill it,” the pilot stressed.

David Borló, with nine years of experience, is one of the technicians who integrates the entourage of the Sancti Spíritus air services unit in Matanzas. He explained that once assigned the mission to intervene in the fire, at Sancti Spiritus airport, they carried out a lot of work for about three hours, with a lot of effort from all the technicians of the entity, to condition the M-18, known as dromedaries.

“We are preparing everything related to the structural part of the equipment, the handling in the pilot’s cabin, the equipment used for navigation, the engine of the vessel and the structure of the landing gear have been well checked; Also we make sure of the balance for the loads that are going to be housed here, the amount of water, where to put the tank, the technicians have to be very aware of that, we even looked at what to do in case of an emergency we are facing here”.

“It’s a risky operation,” said David Borló. However, we have the training that they give us at Sancti Spíritus for these firefighting operations, a technical minimum, as they say. Of course, it will never be as real as it is today.

“We feel a lot of responsibility, it’s difficult, we are psychologically prepared because it’s our job, but yes, it’s tense, at the same time I’m proud to be able to bring this grain of sand at such a time. tricky in my country,” he concluded.