Social media users are claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris staged a photo op with a North Carolina Air National Guard C-17 for Hurricane Helene and that the supplies loaded on the aircraft never went out.
THIS SHOULD PISS YOU OFF.
Apparently Kamala Harris had a C17 loaded FULL of Hurricane aid for a FREAKING photo op!!!!
It gets worse…
The supplies never got DELIVERED.
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) October 11, 2024
The claim stems from Jonathan Howard, a member of the non-profit Aerial Recovery, which has been assisting in relief efforts in North Carolina. He made the claim on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan, a former U.S. Navy Seal.
“And then also from that video, I started getting a lot of messages, like to my Instagram from like, actual like, aircraft commanders, like squadron commanders. I had a squadron commander from North Carolina reach out to me. They had to load a C-17 full of supplies just to take a photo-op for Kamala, and they never sent the bird,” Howard claimed.
He further added, “They loaded an entire C-17 full of supplies for the hurricane victims just for Kamala to go there, take a photo, take a video, and they never sent the C-17.”
Harris visited North Carolina on Oct. 5 and met with local and state officials and pledged further federal support for the state, which was wrecked by Hurricane Helene, according to the Associated Press. (RELATED: No, Viral Montage Does Not Solely Depict Hurricane Milton)
The video referenced in the podcast appears to be this one, which was shared by Harris on social media on Oct. 7. She appears in front of a C-17, which is being loaded. Check Your Fact found the C-17 being loaded through images published by Reuters and DVIDS. It has a register number of 01-01907, per Air History.
Check Your Fact reviewed FlightRadar24, which tracks flights, and found that the aircraft landed in Charlotte, North Carolina on Oct. 3. It did not depart Charlotte until Oct. 9, when it left for Germany, according to FlightRadar24. Check Your Fact reached out to FlightRadar24 with additional questions.
Screenshot/FlightRadar24
Lt. Col. Ellis Parks, director of Public Affairs for the North Carolina National Guard, told Check Your Fact in a phone interview that there was a “maintenance issue” which is why it didn’t fly out that night with those supplies.
“They moved all those commodities to another aircraft, and when they moved into that aircraft, believe it or not, there was a maintenance issue with that aircraft as well,” Parks said. So the [supplies] made it to Asheville on the 6th.”
Parks provided Check Your Fact with the other aircraft’s registry number, which was 93-0602. That aircraft flew out to Asheville on Oct. 6 and returned to Charlotte the same day, according to FlightRadar24. It also flew to Asheville on Oct. 8 and Oct. 10, per FlightRadar24.
Screenshot/FlightRadar24
Parks stressed that the supplies “made it to Asheville.”
“They were delivered. They were delivered. Those commodities made it to Asheville,” Parks said. “They did not make it to Asheville on the plane that originally the commodities were originally put on. That was because of a maintenance issue. It was a fuel fuel system malfunction, as far as the word is.”
Howard claims that the information came from a National Guard officer, an “0-6”, which is a Colonel. Tori Robinson, the chief marketing officer of Aerial Recovery, said that “[t]his was 2nd hand information that was told to us by a National Guard Colonel. (RELATED: Did Iran Conduct A Nuclear Test That Triggered An Earthquake?)
“No units were shared or discussed and that is how it was spoken about on the podcast,” Robinson said.
Robinson later put Check Your Fact in touch with Howard. Howard told Check Your Fact in a phone interview that he stood by his claim and that the person who told him this information was on the ground at the airport during Harris’s Oct. 5 visit at the time.
Howard received the Instagram message on Oct. 6. Howard later told Check Your Fact in a text message that the person reaffirmed the original claim.
Parks said that Harris’s visit and the C-17 being loaded at that time were not connected, saying that they load C-17s “everyday.” The Daily Caller reported that a “person familiar with the situation told [them] that the vice president’s trip did not interfere with the National Guard’s existing plans for loading planes to distribute supplies to those in need.” (Disclaimer: The Daily Caller is a sister website of Check Your Fact. We are editorially independent of each other.)
C-17s have been used to deliver supplies to parts of North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene, with an Oct. 7 press release stating that “145th AW has completed four C-17 missions, delivering 228 pallets equaling 50,000 pounds of various supplies and more than 400,000 pounds of water, meals ready to eat and medication.”
Check Your Fact reached out to the White House and the Vice President’s office for comment.
