A humanitarian air operator that saves lives: With your help, we take off!
«We have to do something! It can’t be that people drown on their flight to Europe.» That’s what Fabio said when he and a few pilot friends founded the Humanitarian Pilots Initiative (HPI) six years ago. They then began conducting search flights over the central Mediterranean - without knowing where their vision would lead. Since then, HPI has grown steadily and many more projects have been launched. To be able to continue to carry out all these important flights, we depend on your help.
More than 25'000 people rescued
Together with our partner organisation Sea-Watch, we have already spotted more than 25’000 people in over 3’000 hours. In many of these cases, our quick localisation from the air of highly endangered boats was necessary to arrange the rescue of the refugees in time. By now, 35 people are working with us, most of them on a voluntary basis. Always following our vision of helping people in need quickly and non-bureaucratically, we have developed and imple-mented many new ideas. For example, with the outbreak of war in Ukraine, we started to bring important goods to border areas and to evacuate vulnerable people for whom escape by land is not possible. In cooperation with Sea Shepherd, we are fighting illegal fishing. When illegal fishing devices catch far more marine animals get caught than fished. We also developed the Super Versa-tile Airdrop System (SVAS): This makes it possible to drop vital supplies to people in need in hard-to-reach areas. What makes SVAS special is its simplicity, targeting accuracy and cost efficiency. As a result, it brings great benefits to humanitarian causes worldwide. We are very proud of these developments: they are only possible thanks to the great voluntary commitment of our entire team and our supporters.
Continuation of work in question
Now we are facing a big challenge: we have to take the next step to be able to continue our projects. This means that we have to become a humanitarian flight operator. This step is associated with high costs that we cannot afford on our own. But it is necessary for legal reasons, in order to be able to continue to guarantee the safety of our flights and to be able to drop goods, evacuate people from emergencies, and carry out search flights in the future. Moreover, this step empowers us to offer our services to other organisations in the future. This way, we can bring our ideas forward and HPI can exist in the long term.
Do you share our vision? Then please help us take off!
To become a humanitarian airline, we need at least CHF 50’000 (or roughly 50.000 €), because we have a lot of work ahead of us that we cannot manage without external experts. In addition, we need two people who work full-time for three months to obtain all the necessary permits, prepare documents and create manuals. Our goal is high, but we are convinced that we can achieve it with your help! Only with joint efforts can we continue our commitment to people in need. With your contribution, you become part of our community: every donation counts!
We thank you very much for your support.