September 5th is officially Amazon Day. With a territorial extension almost eight times larger than France, Legal Amazon offers constant challenges to those who travel through it. By land, most roads are in a precarious condition; by rivers and rails, the reality is that the potential of these modes of transport is underused, as shown in the two previous reports in this series produced by Liberal Amazon. Therefore, air transport is, in many cases, a solution for public authorities to reach isolated communities and for the transport of products and services.
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Moreover, flying over the Amazon is also a daunting challenge, even for the most experienced pilots. Major Gustavo Bolentine, 36, has been working for the Military Police aviation for 11 years, in Tocantins, a state divided between the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. In his view, the difference between working in one biome and the other is very clear: “In the Cerrado, the trees are more dispersed, and the vegetation is lower. Thus, it is easier to find a landing area. In the Amazon range, however, it is the opposite. Here in Tocantins, the Amazon biome is concentrated in Parque do Cantão, a dense forest environment”, he describes.
Bolentine works as director of Integrated Center for Air Operations (CIOPAER) and has extensive experience in forest firefighting missions. Faced with the spreading fire, and considering the forest density, he remembers that landing is always a delicate operation. Often, the crew has to clear space manually, with one crew member rappelling down and using a machete to create minimal space for the helicopter to land. “It is always a huge challenge. Trees are very tall, preventing the aircraft to approach the ground safely, we have to think of ways to act in each situation. Every mission performed in Parque do Cantão leaves deep marks on the members of CIOPAER”, he says.
Pandemic - In addition to this type of operation, the work of pilots in the Amazon, at many other times, represents the help that comes from the sky. During the covid-19 pandemic, aircrafts were widely used, whether for transporting vaccines and equipment or transferring patients from places with scarce infrastructure and resources to other municipalities, with greater capacity to care for patients in serious health condition. The situation was basically the same in all the states of the Amazon region.
In the state of Pará, the aircrafts at the service of health crews fighting Covid-19 helped save lives such as that of the administrative agent, Edinilson de Souza Pires, 49 years old from Almeirim, in the west of the state. Almeirim is a city with 34,000 inhabitants, which borders Suriname and the state of Amapá. Ednilson was hospitalized for three days in his hometown, however, his critical condition required a transfer on an aerial Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to Field Hospital, in Santarém. The trip by air lasted 50 minutes, however, had it been by the river, the trip on a speedboat, in the same stretch, would take at least 8 hours.
Today, Edinilson is recovered and resumed his activities normally. He is only treating one last sequel of covid-19 – memory loss. “But this memory of having my life saved by the skies I won’t forget”, he jokes. “This trip on an aerial ICU changed my life completely. I started to give more value to life, to people, to my family", he concludes.
Air ICUs helped more than 1,400 people in Pará
The aerial ICU flight that saved the life of administrative agent Edinilson de Souza Pires was one of 1,461 carried out in Pará, between March 2020 and December 2021, due to the covid-19 pandemic, according to Secretaria de Saúde do Estado do Pará (Sespa) [Pará State Health Department]. Data for 2022 is not yet available.
According to Sespa, during the flights, the presence of a doctor and a nurse, in addition to the crew and a patient companion, is mandatory. Nurse Breno Lins was a member of the air ICU crew which helped Edinilson Pires, during the trip from Almeirim to Santarém. He referred to the challenge that aircrafts face when landing in hard-to-reach places. "An example is Almeirim, a very difficult place to reach, with restrictions on landing aircrafts, it's a gravel runway for the aircraft to land, so, a prepared crew is essential, specialized people for the type of operation that is going to take place", said Breno.
“Helibaldes” play an important role in fighting the flames
The Integrated Center for Air Operations (CIOPAER) of Tocantins is an agency responsible for air policing and also for actions such as rescues, people’s displacements, surveys, search and rescue, firefighting and civil defense. The Center brings together the Civil and Military Police, Fire Department and Penal Police of Tocantins. It’s based in the state capital, Palmas, from where aircrafts depart for the rest of the 277,600-kilometer territorial extension. “The use of the aircraft in the state brought agility to the Center’s performance. In a stretch where it would normally take from 6 to 7 hours to travel in an ambulance by roadways, with the helicopter the trip is reduced to only 45 minutes. This service makes all the difference in providing an adequate medical response and saving lives, especially for isolated communities, such as indigenous lands”, explains Major Gustavo Bolentine.
The aerial squad also makes it possible to fight fires and act in the preservation of areas where, previously, access was very limited, as there is no land track. “With the Instituto de Natureza do Tocantins, we are able to do everything from preventive actions to putting out fires with the so-called 'helibaldes' – large containers of water that carry more than 500L per trip and have a very effective result”, he exemplifies. With the “helibaldes”, firefighters are able to throw water directly from the skies onto the forest, putting out the fire with more precision and agility. According to the Mapbiomas Fire Monitor, from January 2021 to July 2022, fires in the state of Tocantins consumed more than 2.2 million hectares of forest.
Missing people – Air squads are also responsible for finding missing aircrafts and people in the forest. “Sometimes there are pilots who lose the track of the route and, in a dense forest, as in the Amazon, it is difficult to land and to follow a geographical reference”, explains the director of the CIOPAER, Major Gustavo Bolentine.
A recent case happened to the pilot from Pará, Robert Bento dos Santos Menegace, who was returning from a mining site, on June 24, 2022, when he disappeared on the border between Brazil and Venezuela. The suspicion is that the single-engine aircraft he was piloting may have suffered some kind of breakdown and made a forced landing into the forest. Until the closing of this edition, Robert’s location was still unknown.
Integration by air plays an important role in the region
During almost 12 years operating, CIOPAER in Tocantins has already accomplished more than three thousand hours of flight. It has a crew of 25 people, including aircraft mechanics, pilots, fuelling technical operators and an administrative assistant. According to Major Gustavo Bolentine, whenever necessary, the Center also has the support of units from neighboring states, such as Maranhão, which helps in the region of Bico do Papagaio, located in the extreme north of Tocantins. It is geographically closer to Imperatriz (Maranhão State) than to Palmas.
The Grupamento Aéreo de Segurança Pública (Graesp) [Public Security Air Group] also assists in operations along Pará borders. This unit exists in the state since 2004 and it stems from the Secretary of Public Security and Social Defense (Segup). Currently, the squad has a fleet of 14 aircrafts and a technical staff of 42 pilots, besides other specialized professionals, who cover the territorial extension of 1.2 million km² in the state. Graesp is integrated to all the state departments, such as Health, Education, Environment and Penitentiary System.
FAB operates patrolling and protecting the air space
The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) also operates in the Amazon to patrol airspace and protect national sovereignty. An important action is the fight against illegal mining, including the destruction of mining structures and equipment, seizure of ammunition, transporting groups of Federal Police and other agents.
FAB airplanes are also responsible for intercepting irregular flights that may be linked to crimes. In addition, the FAB participates in the destruction of clandestine airstrips and carries out preventive and repressive actions against transgressions, such as environmental crimes, smuggling, embezzlement practices and drug trafficking.
According to data from the Air Force Social Communication Center, in the last three years, 652 interceptions were carried out using airplanes throughout Brazil and, in 2021, the operation resulted in about 1,680 kg of drugs seized in the country. The Liberal Amazon staff requested an interview and specific data about the Amazon, but did not receive the information until the closing of this edition.
Manaus stands out in the transport of air cargo in the region
In addition to public services that assist the population, the air mode in the Amazon plays an important role for the economy, transporting cargo and people. Last year, the transactions in the Cargo Logistics Terminals (Teca) of Rede Infraero, in the Amazon, summed the amount of more than 35 thousand tons. The report published by Infraero considered five airports in the Amazon (Belém, Boa Vista, Manaus, Macapá and São Luís). Manaus, in Amazonas state, concentrates 92% of this total (32,332 tons).
According to Augusto Barreto da Rocha, adjunct director of the Industry Federation of the Amazonas State (FIEAM) and professor at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), the concentration of most transactions in Manaus is due to the Free Trade Zone in the region, which, since 1967, emerged aiming to be a free port for the storage, processing and collecting of products imported from abroad.
One of the main industrial parks in the country is based in this region. It is responsible for one of the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures of Brazilian industry, named as Industrial Pole of Manaus (PIM). “The Industrial Pole is very close to the Manaus airport, so it is very competitive. The main loads that arrive there are electronic components and those that leave [the municipality] are high value-added commodities, such as electronics and cell phones”, he explains, highlighting that Manaus is one of the epicenters of the region in air cargo transport, besides Belém.
Improvements and interiorization of airports
According to the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac), 11.8 million passengers departured or arrived in 2021, in the 59 airports of nine states of the Legal Amazon (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins), in paid domestic flights.
According to the National Survey of Passenger Satisfaction and Airport Performance, applied to the 20 main airports in the country, Val-de-Cans International Airport, in Belém (PA) is listed in the worst position in the ranking. Eduardo Gomes International Airport, in Manaus (AM) ranked 7th position. The other airports in the Amazon are not listed among the main ones in the country.
The study was carried out in the fourth quarter of 2021 and it evaluates the experience of passengers in various items of infrastructure, customer assistance and general services, and in different airport processes such as check-in, security inspection and baggage claim.
Due to the challenges faced in the region, the adjunct director of FIEAM, Augusto Barreto, hopes that the new concession models that are being applied will improve the internal conditions of airports in the Amazon and expand the possibilities for the region. Several airports have been privatized in auctions recently. Now, they are managed by the private sector, such as the airports in Manaus and Porto Velho (RO). The last auction held so far was for the airports of Belém, Marabá, Santarém, Parauapebas and Altamira, all of them in Pará. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure (Minfra), the joint concession of eight more airports is planned for 2023, this time in Amazonas: Parintins, Carauari, Coari, Eirunepé, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Barcelos, Lábrea and Maués.
In a note, the Ministry of Infrastructure (Minfra) reports that almost 23 million people in the Legal Amazon can find a public airport within two hours of travel. However, in the opinion of Augusto Barreto, the number of regional airports in the region is still insufficient and “the shortage of this transport mode in the Amazon occurs mainly in the countryside areas, which are often neglected”.
Barreto explains that, in this scenario, the only transport option for people and cargo from the Amazon is often the boats, with longer journeys. “This decreases the region's commercial and tourist competitiveness, since there is not an integrated perspective of the transport system. We cannot think about each issue individually. The modes of transport need to be interconnected and their planning must be thought both for passengers and cargo”, he concludes.
