Saturday morning, November 9th in Virginia was a cold fall morning – a perfect day for Amelia Air to launch into action. Flying down to Knoxville Tennessee with my co-pilot, Umar Ali, we were excited to get started on this latest rescue. This one had started a few weeks prior when we contacted a rescue in Louisiana that was quite full with dogs they’ve been collecting and fostering, in need of transport to their new homes in Maryland.

Having called ahead to the Knoxville FBO (Tac Air), we were greeted by the friendly folks who parked us right next to the entry door. The dogs were still en route from their 11+ hour drive from Louisiana, being driven in real doggie comfort in a bus that the kind folks at Delta Humane Society had converted into a rescue animal transport luxury vehicle!

20 of the 21 dogs were already adopted by the time we landed, and the 21st found a home the next day!

You can see from the video above, the loading of the dogs into the plane was quite a complex challenge, accommodating mama’s and their litters, and packing the crates into the plane while keeping the dogs comfortable and not stressing them out.

Once loaded up, we flew the 2 hour flight from Knoxville to Maryland without incident, as you can see from the flight track below:

The wonderful folks at the Canine Humane Network met us at the airport in Gaithersburg with 2 big vans and a bunch of crates to bring the dogs back to their rescue for cleaning up, medications, feeding and sleeping before heading to their new homes!

We are very grateful to all the folks at both animal rescues for their efforts and hard work at collecting the abandoned dogs in Louisana and for finding homes for them in Maryland.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!