Pilot takes off on mission to deliver PPE

Sitting on his couch on a Sunday afternoon in late March, Cran Jones grew alarmed at news reports about shortages of personal protective equipment at Detroit-area hospitals.

He had little more than some automotive industry contacts, aviation experience and a desire to help. But in about a day, he had led a grassroots effort to prototype, produce and deliver face shields.

Jones called a friend and engineer at auto stamping company Mursix Corp. Two hours later, he got a call back.

"He literally had gotten those clear plastic sheets for overhead projectors that he had in his desk at home, some elastic, some foam and cobbled something up at home," said Jones, of manufacturers' representative company Thomas & Jones Group and co-owner of Michigan Seaplane, a suburban Detroit flight school.

Jones, 57, sent a picture of the prototype to friends at area hospitals.

"They said, 'How many?' and 'How fast?' and I'm like, 'Whoa, whoa,' " he said. "They said, 'Cran, we need them now.' "

As Mursix produced 200 face shields the next day at its factory in Yorktown, Ind., Jones took off in a Cessna 206. He and another pilot made the two-hour round-trip flight to retrieve the masks. By evening, he was back and distributing the shields to medical personnel.

Mursix made 20,000 more shields within the first two weeks. Pilots volunteered their time and aircraft to ferry masks to the Detroit area, while Michigan Seaplane donated fuel. The collective efforts trimmed hours of what would have been a full day of travel by car, at a time when the shields were in desperate need.

Today, the effort continues, though shields are now shipped since demand has stabilized.