Cabin crew unloading their vital cargo in Santo Domingo. Peter Lightbody is at the top of the steps, in the white shirt

AS soon as he heard about the Haiti earthquake, Peter Lightbody knew he was in a unique position to help.

The former RAF Tornado pilot (40), who saw active service in the Gulf, is now the 747 technical manager for British Airways and flies jumbo jets around the world.

He said that he and fellow senior staff quickly mobilised the assets at their disposal to help the relief effort. ‘We had a look at it and realised that we have a spare 747,’ he explained.

Therefore, on Saturday morning, Mr Lightbody and a team of 30 volunteers from BA flew up to Denmark to a depot run by the charity Unicef.

The airline, which is a partner of the charity, gave £300,000 and filled up both the hold and the cabin of the huge aircraft with 50 tons of emergency supplies, 15 of which went into the cabin.

Mr Lightbody, who lives in St Lawrence, then flew the jumbo across the Atlantic. They had hoped to fly straight into Port-au-Prince, but the airport was too congested and they diverted to Santo Domingo, in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

‘We arrived on Sunday morning,’ he said. ‘It was really quite interesting. We had to unload by hand so we blew up our emergency slides and threw the boxes down.  It was amazing to do something so worthwhile in a weekend. Haiti is in a terrible situation and so it was great to be able to do something.’

A Jersey Disaster Appeal in aid of the victims of the Haiti earthquake was launched by the Bailiff, Michael Birt, earlier this week.

• Anyone wishing to make a donation to the appeal should make out a cheque, bank transfer or debit card in favour of the Jersey Disaster Appeal. The bank account is held by HSBC (sort code: 40-25-34, account number: 91663933, IBAN: GB80MIDL40253491663933).
• Donations can be made into the account though any clearing bank in the Island or post office, any parish hall and at the States Treasury cashiers department located on the ground floor of Cyril Le Marquand House, which is open from 9 am to 5 pm from Monday to Friday.
• Donations can also be made using a Freepost facility launched by Jersey Post so that cheques can be sent by post without charge. Envelopes should be addressed to Jersey Disaster Appeal, Freepost JE731, Jersey, JE1 1AF.
• The Bailiff’s Chambers be contacted on 441100.