As God continues to expand our cargo fleet, we give thanks for a decade of missions aboard the Samaritan’s Purse DC-8.
“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” –Isaiah 43:19
When you think of a desert graveyard, you probably don’t imagine rows of giant cargo and passenger jets set like tombstones along an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico, but that was the unlikely place where Samaritan’s Purse discovered a Douglas DC-8 in 2015.
Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham surveys the load before the DC-8s inaugural flight to Ecuador in 2016.
“We salvaged this DC-8 from a boneyard in New Mexico—it was made in 1968,” said Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham as we prepared for the aircraft’s inaugural flight in 2016. “Now this workhorse will be used to deliver Samaritan’s Purse relief supplies and transport response staff to field sites around the world.”
The story of the Samaritan’s Purse DC-8, from desert storage until now, reflects the unlikely ways that God demonstrates His mercy and provision. And God has used the re-commissioned Samaritan’s Purse DC-8 over the last decade to remind survivors of disasters that they are not forgotten.
The DC-8 combi-jet, the last U.S.-registered DC-8 operating in the U.S., ushered in a new era for Samaritan’s Purse in our capacity for long-distance heavy air transport.
On the eve of the DC-8’s inaugural flight Graham said, “We plan to use this plane all over the world. I put a cross on the tail of this airplane. I want everyone to know that this plane is coming in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Only 24 hours after it was approved to fly, Ecuador was struck by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, and the ministry sent the DC-8 with an Emergency Field Hospital equipped to serve over 100 patients, with an operating room to provide multiple major surgeries daily. In December of the same year, the DC-8 was sent to Iraq to provide emergency trauma care to more than 4,000 victims of war.
Almost every year following, the DC-8 responded to a host of unprecedented disasters, including the Covid-19 pandemic that blazed through Italy where we provided a 68-bed respiratory care unit. This was followed by hurricanes in the Caribbean, fires in Hawaii, war erupting in Ukraine, the attacks on Israel, earthquakes in Turkey, and scores of other responses requiring the combi-jet capabilities of the DC-8.
Aboard the aviation workhorse, we have transported Polish and Ukrainian refugees fleeing from war, an Emergency Field Hospital after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of packets of supplementary food for women and children in Gaza, and, most recently, the essential supplies needed to care for Jamaican families after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa.
Isaiah envisioned “a road in the wilderness.” But God has used our aircraft to carve a path through the skies to help hurting people.
Brought Back to Life for a Purpose
“We believe God brought this plane back to life to do a particular mission for him,” said Jim Vechery, director of Samaritan’s Purse Mission Aviation Services in Greensboro, North Carolina. “Our DC-8 is a piece of history. It’s a vintage aircraft, born on Christmas Eve, and it’s just done an amazing amount of work.”
Ground crews in the Caribbean offload the DC-8 after hurricanes hit the islands.
The unique design of this Douglas aircraft, with its narrow-frame built to transport both passengers and cargo, makes it the ideal vehicle for our international disaster relief operations.
Jodie Bushy, a nurse who’s served on our Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), remembers her missions aboard the DC-8 to Lebanon and Grenada. Its unique configuration enabled it to carry cargo and disaster specialists at once, saving precious time.
“We didn’t have to wait for supplies to come,” she said. “We didn’t have to wait for people to come. We were able to have both things at once so that we could go and help as soon as we could.”
Inside the DC-8 cockpit, the crew prepares for departure on one of hundreds of missions.
In Lebanon, the team was able to immediately rush relief to victims of a massive explosion in Beirut. In Grenada, on multiple airlifts, the DC-8 delivered disaster teams and more than 375,000 pounds of supplies, allowing us to deliver shelter, lights, water, hygiene kits, and an Emergency Field Hospital to provide aid within days of a Category 5 storm. From the very beginning, the DC-8’s purpose was to carry life-saving supplies while bringing hope in Jesus Christ.
Danny Jacques, a DC-8 flight attendant for Samaritan’s Purse, fondly remembers a flight carrying Ukrainians fleeing the war-torn country. The grateful passengers pulled out musical instruments and began to play songs from the homeland they had left behind. Even as Danny and his team served the refugees, he recounted how these Ukrainian families got up and served one another alongside the Samaritan’s Purse staff.
Nighttime loading for an early departure.
During tragic moments of widespread disaster and life-threatening circumstances, speed, efficiency, and compassion are what it requires to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. The DC-8 provided our hands and feet with wings.
“It has ‘Helping in Jesus’ Name.’ And on the tail, it has the Samaritan’s Purse cross in the midst of the storm. So, (wherever we land) people get to see a visual display of what we’re there to do, and who we’re there to serve,” said Vechery.
Airshows Where the Mission Took Flight
This central purpose of our aircraft was signaled in real time to aviation enthusiasts at the EAA Air Venture Airshow in July. The DC-8 crew packed up from its tarmac exhibition to prepare for a Middle East deployment, carrying critical aid to Gaza.
From Oshkosh, Wisconsin, they flew the aircraft to our Airlift Response Center in Greensboro, North Carolina, where crews loaded the first airlift of supplementary food, blankets, and other relief items.
A Samaritan’s Purse nurse cares for a patient inside the Emergency Field Hospital in Black River, Jamaica, where medical teams are treating those affected by Hurricane Melissa.
Then, from July to October of this year, Samaritan’s Purse sent 15 relief flights—seven of those aboard the DC-8—to assist people in Gaza. We delivered more than 700,000 pounds of relief, including hundreds of thousands of packets of vitamin-rich, peanut-based supplementary food, along with 12,000 blankets, 12,000 solar lights, and other relief.
OVERVIEW | SAMARITAN’S PURSE AVIATION
Our 757 joined the mission, along with our 767, which made its inaugural flight during this Middle East response. It was the first time that all three Samaritan’s Purse cargo airplanes had been used on the same mission.
Samaritan’s Purse teams loaded our latest flight to the Middle East to help suffering families in Gaza.
“Samaritan’s Purse is working to help innocent civilians caught in the crossfire,” Franklin Graham said. “These food supplies are a tangible reminder that God sees them, cares for them, and has not forgotten them in their suffering.”
Like in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10, we responded believing that the transformation of one life is worth the cost.
Jean de Dieu Milan
During one unexpected guest visit, the crew met the last commercial pilot to have landed our DC-8 before it was sent into desert storage. He said he that when he parked the aircraft for what he believed would be its final flight, he never imagined it would one day be used again. He was blessed to see how it was being used for global humanitarian missions in Jesus’ Name.
Another visitor this year, Jean de Dieu Milan, was a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Now more than 30 years after those tragic events, Jean toured the DC-8 during the CenterPoint Airshow in Dayton, Ohio. He watched footage of Samaritan’s Purse airdrop missions and walked through the aircraft, and he was overcome with memories of another plane that had once saved his life.
Samaritan’s Purse COO Edward Graham, with father Franklin Graham, walks around the 767, the aircraft to carry on the work of carrying relief around the world in Jesus’ Name.
“When I saw that plane, I remembered the many people—the ones I know who were in that jungle,” Jean said, recounting how as a young man fleeing genocide, his life was saved by the food delivered by a cargo plane. “If I had not received that food 30 years ago, I do not know if I would be here today. When I did not have something to eat, they fed me, and now I’m here. Praise God!”
Today, Jean leads his own nonprofit, helping thousands of immigrants navigate the healthcare system and American culture. Stories like his remind us why we go to such lengths as a ministry—and why aviation remains essential to reaching people in crisis.
The End and Beginning of an Era
“We have what we call God-sized stories, and we have seen God work over and over again. This whole place is a God-sized story,” said Vechery, celebrating how God has enabled Samaritan’s Purse to expand its fleet even as we retire our original cargo workhorse.
Franklin Graham meets with Liberty University Chancellor Jonathan Falwell following the DC-8’s retirement ceremony.
As the DC-8’s decade of service comes to an end, we know this also marks the beginning of new ministry opportunities for our aviation and global reach after disasters. Our 767 will take on the role that the DC-8 helped pioneer, with greater capacity and efficiency for delivering relief supplies to those suffering after disasters.
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Following its inaugural flight to Gaza in October 2025, the 767 flew weeks later to Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa devastated the Caribbean island nation. Again the DC-8, 757, and 767 airlifted hundreds of tons of relief, including shelter materials, community water filtration systems, household water filters, solar lights, and a 30-bed Emergency Field Hospital.
The 767’s capacity allowed us, for the first time, to transport a complete Tier 2 Emergency Field Hospital on one flight.
“We were the only ministry that I know of that can do such a task and bringing the Boeing 767 online is a game changer,” explained Vechery. “It opens the aperture even more so. But if we had not had the DC-8 doing what it does, we may not have made that jump.”
The story of the Samaritan’s Purse DC-8 reflects what God has accomplished through the aircraft’s missions. Found in a literal desert boneyard where once-powerful aircraft are forgotten, it has flown our teams to devastated places where people are cut off and wonder if anyone remembers they’re there.
We have been blessed by how God has used this gift to bring communities from destruction to a future and a hope through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No place is so hard to reach for a God who opens new paths in desserts and carves trails through open skies. No place and no person is beyond the reach of God’s restoration.
The DC-8 will be on display as a reminder to Liberty Aeronautics students of how God uses aviation to further the Gospel worldwide.
