U.S. Navy photo by Journalist 2nd Class Denny Lester, 2003

Bibianna Danko '99 with one of the Navy's MH-53s, among the world's largest helicopters, which she has been flying as part of the U.S. military's humanitarian effort to aid Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans.

In stocking feet U.S. Navy Lt. Bibianna Danko, Class of '99, is barely 5 feet tall, but she flies one of the Navy's four MH-53s, among the largest helicopters in the world. "It can carry up to 20,000 pounds -- and double that for short distances," says her father, Jack Danko.

Lately she has been using her piloting skills to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina and deliver supplies to those hardest hit by the disaster on the U.S. Gulf Coast. To do the job at hand, Danko, who majored in natural resources and environmental studies at Cornell, has been working 20-hour days along with the rest of her crew, reports her father.

The oldest of five redheads, three girls, two boys, Danko, who was in the Reserve Officers Training Corps while at Cornell, was featured in a story in the December 2003 issue of Glamour magazine about women in the military far from home during the holidays. Despite the publicity, much of the work she has done has been distinctly unglamorous. As she was returning from her second tour of duty in the other gulf -- the Persian one -- last year, the tsunami struck in Southeast Asia and she was called on to fly relief missions there. And this September she had just returned to her home base from a relatively relaxing stint in Panama when orders came to aid the hurricane relief effort in New Orleans.

The following are excerpts from e-mails between Danko and her family this past week.

Sat, 3 Sep 2005, 14:40:56 - 0600

Our guys are really working the convention center today -- getting people out of there. i'm on the "standby" crew. flew the 2 days prior and will be flying tomorrow. still really tired and going to go take a nap here shortly (hopefully). it's very draining ... and we haven't been going to bed early, even though we've been waking up at 4 or 4:30 a.m.

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Airman Pedro A. Rodriguez, 2005

A hurricane survivor smiles as she exits a Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter at the New Orleans International Airport, in a rescue effort involving Cornellian Bibianna Danko's Navy squadron.

It's unbelievable how many aircraft have been flying around here the last 2 days. so many people working their butts off. i really think that's the largest danger for us -- avoiding all the other aircraft flying around.

And then on the deck at the different airports it's just insane how many helicopters are coming and going -- army chinooks (ch47s) blackhawks and hueys, navy 53s (well, us) and 60s, coast guard 60s and 65s ("dolphins"), marine 53s starting yesterday and then some civilian helicopters too ("life flights" and such).

In fact new orleans international airport yesterday was pretty impressive -- at the passenger drop-off/ triage there were two LONG lines of helos just waiting to drop people off -- we're talking dozens and dozens of all sorts of helicopters.

I decided not to take my people there any more after that though, because it took so long. we either drop people off in the grass sections of the cloverleaf "leaves" or on the straightaways of I-10 itself.

You asked if that was me you saw on TV yesterday? could be ... I've flown in the right seat at least once. what was the aircraft doing? did it have the smaller fuel tanks on the side?

I just heard that Fox News with Geraldo showed live footage of one of our

Guys landing at the convention center to pick up people. and CNN showed some

Footage earlier today too of the aircraft I was flying yesterday dropping off people at one site and taking off. i was the one to find that landing spot too -- i was pretty proud about it.

Okay, i'm going to try and set up my movie now on one of the navy websites and take a nap.

Sun, 4 Sep 2005 18:33:16 - 0700 (PDT)

I flew a bunch of elderly, critically ill people from Slidell, Louisiana, today to 120 miles northwest of there. they were all on stretchers in the back, on oxygen, and pretty miserable. the docs and nurses were really happy to see us though. very long day ... we preflighted at 04:00 and landed on the ship at 19:15.

We WERE going to fly Rummy today! i.e., the Secretary of Defense. but the 3-star army general he was touring with came over and said [he] had decided to go on the army blackhawks. curses! but the general gave us all a bunch of his special coins. oh well. i was part of the action.

Tue, 6 Sep 2005 14:41:02 - 0600

Re: the picture on the Navy Web site and your question, is this my squad? why yes it is! pretty cool, huh? one of my trips we had 3 babies -- two were newborn twins. we've had dogs, elderly people, etc.

One trip i made i had a cabin full of 9 VERY elderly men and women on stretchers. they were in their 90s and at least one was over 100. one of the men had to be operated on as soon as we got him off the helicopter because he was pretty messed up. most of them were on oxygen throughout the trip. made me feel pretty good to get them where they needed to go.

love you guys, bibi