NPR

Nobody Wants To Drop Food From A Plane. But It's Happening

It's difficult. It's potentially dangerous. It's costly. And it's going on in South Sudan right now.

A plane flies over a field in South Sudan. Out of the sky drops a cascade of pallets, sacks or boxes filled with emergency food supplies that, once they reach the ground, can make the difference between sustenance and starvation.

It can make for quite a show: Unlike ordinary truck or barge deliveries, an airdrop is full of drama. Specially trained pilots must carefully calibrate the altitude that will allow the containers, each with its own parachute to cushion the landing, to hit featured airdrops in South Sudan in

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