A U.S. Army parachute rigger places his hand on a bundle of humanitarian aid with a parachute on top in a warehouse at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, March 16, 2024. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)
Parachutes failed to deploy on five pallets of humanitarian aid dropped by Air Force cargo planes into Gaza, a statement from U.S. Central Command said Friday.
The pallets, which can weigh between 1,200 and 2,000 pounds, didn’t cause any damage after falling during an airdrop mission involving two U.S. C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes Thursday, CENTCOM said.
U.S. officials said they are basing their assessment on video they took of the airdrop.
“The footage shows the parachutes not fully deploying and the bundles landing in the water,” said Maj. Ryan DeCamp, a spokesman for Air Forces Central, in an emailed statement Friday.
The statement did not include answers regarding the cause of the malfunctions and whether any changes will be made to prevent similar incidents in the future.
An earlier incident in which a parachute malfunctioned March 8 killed five Palestinians and wounded several others, CNN reported. A CENTCOM statement at the time said the errant airdrop wasn’t a U.S. operation.
Thursday’s mission involved two C-17 cargo planes flying from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to Gaza. The five pallets with faulty parachutes were part of some 80 bundles of food and water.
The pallets of food loaded onto cargo planes at Al Udeid weigh 1,200 pounds with a parachute, and the ones carrying water bottles weigh more than a ton. Troops put low-velocity parachutes on them that are 64 feet in diameter and are supposed to slow the bundles.
The U.S. and other countries in the Middle East, Europe and Asia have been airdropping pallets of food and water to Palestinians in Gaza since early March.
More than 2 million people in Gaza are estimated to be displaced by the war that began Oct. 7, when a Hamas terrorist attack killed 1,200 people in Israel.
Gaza health authorities estimate the number of dead in the territory at more than 30,000 people, a figure that does not distinguish between bystanders and combatants.
