State Department fires back at accusations of ‘empty planes’ rescuing Americans from conflict zones
FIRST ON FOX: The State Department's account of its evacuation efforts is at odds with on-the-ground reports from private rescue teams who helped extract U.S. citizens from conflict zones during the opening days of the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Bryan Stern, founder and CEO of Grey Bull Rescue, a nonprofit evacuation service, is contesting claims that the State Department offered assistance to every American who asked for it, asserting instead that thousands of U.S. citizens were left trapped by missiles, bombs and security threats crowding airspace in the region.
"It’s not for lack of effort. Our State Department colleagues are tremendous. But their process doesn’t work. There is also no one — there's no job specialty," Stern told Fox News Digital, noting a lack of a dedicated government position for handling evacuations.
The contrasting assertions raise questions about the logistical efficiency of American rescue efforts while prompting calls from lawmakers for more specialization to get U.S. citizens out of conflict zones in the future.
Stern believes slow-moving bureaucracy is preventing the government from fully utilizing its rescue options.
As one data point, Stern pointed to a video sent to Fox News Digital depicting a mostly empty flight from Israel to Florida near the start of the conflict.
A source, who recorded the video, confirmed they had been evacuated by the State Department from Israel on flight LY1017 from Tel Aviv to Miami, Florida, on March 8 — a point at which Stern said Grey Bull Rescue was being flooded with hundreds of evacuation requests.
In response to inquiries about the video, State Department officials did not address why they had only booked a handful of seats. While the government sometimes purchases individual tickets on a commercial flight for evacuations, they rarely buy the entire aircraft’s capacity, sources familiar with the Department’s evacuation practices told Fox News Digital.
Beyond that particular instance, Department officials said their offers of assistance exceeded the demand on the ground.
"The State Department has reached out to every American who has registered interest in our support," a State Department official said. "Most Americans who requested assistance have declined seats when offered, opting either to remain in country or book commercial flight options which offer greater flexibility in terms of destination and luggage."
Stern believes the answer is misleading.
"That answer is inaccurate in totality," Stern said.
"There’s a difference between a State Department-contracted aircraft that is filled with Americans to come out and getting them to safety. That’s an evacuation. That’s different from: ‘Hey, go book a commercial ticket. Good luck to you,’" Stern said.
PRIVATE SECURITY FIRM HELPING AMERICANS EVACUATE THE MIDDLE EAST AMID WAR WITH IRAN
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who joined Grey Bull Rescue’s operations in Israel last month, applauded government efforts but believes there is room for reform.
"It really opened my eyes to some of the challenges that we have, the bureaucracy that we have," Mace said.
"I'm going to come back to Washington with some ideas on how to streamline what we currently have and how to ensure that we're allocating resources to the State Department, to [the Department of Homeland Security]."
Like Stern, Mace suggested that part of the problem stems from a lack of a single position in the State Department that deals with rescue efforts.
Stern, whose group has worked on over 800 missions to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan, Israel and Venezuela, believes current operations have too many moving pieces.
He said his team’s efforts allow him to communicate more directly with Americans requesting assistance.
"We know them, we talk to them 10 times a day. The current manifest we're working right now has 338 people on it. We do a Zoom call once a day with all the families. Because of that kind of thing, the chain between the person and the airplane is zero, because it's us," Stern said.
"With [the Department of State] you’re calling a center in West Virginia, talking to somebody reading a script who doesn’t know anything; they refer you to a website that goes to a data processing thing somewhere which gets [put] onto an Excel spreadsheet."
Over 43,000 Americans have safely returned to the United States since late February, according to the Department of State. Of those, government operations directly assisted 30,000 Americans.