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Some looked bemused, some wary, some enthusiastic as they were carried off a small private plane onto the tarmac at Culpeper Regional Airport. Then they were escorted to a grassy patch for a potty break and fresh air before catching their connecting flights.

The three cats and 13 dogs were part of a complex weekly airlift conducted by a group of volunteer pilots and animal lovers. For some years, they have brought pets from overwhelmed Southern animal shelters to foster and rescue groups farther north.

But this day was special: The volunteers relayed 117 animals, about twice as many as usual, to mark the anniversary of a tragedy that transformed the group: member Seuk Kim's fatal crash on a rescue flight on Nov. 24, 2024.

"Everybody really feels it," said Sydney Galley, the co-founder and CEO of the group, now called Seuk's Army. But, she said, "he would be so excited to see us with so many dogs."

A pilot's dedication

Kim, 49, had realized a childhood dream of learning to fly and was looking to make a career of it after decades working in the financial sector.

The Springfield, Virginia, man also liked animals. So after connecting with Galley and others through an animal rescue discussion board called Pilots N Paws, he was in. Kim did multiple animal flights a week and recruited other pilots. 

On his last day, Kim left Culpeper with four dogs, delivered one to a Maryland airport, then took off with the rest for Albany, New York.

His 1986 Mooney M20J plane went down in New York's Catskill Mountains after he reported hitting turbulence. The crash killed Kim and one of the dogs, but the other two survived and were adopted.

'I don't think I can do this anymore'

"I don't think I can do this anymore," Karissa Gregory, who with Galley coordinates the flights, told other volunteers after Kim's death.

But one of the pilots, Kley Parkhurst, reminded her that aviators assess and accept the risks of flying. He thinks of Kim whenever he flies animals and dips his plane's wings in tribute if he passes the crash site. 

"I just want to keep the legacy that we started together going," Parkhurst said.

How Seuk's Army regrouped, and grew

After Kim's death, news coverage drew attention, new volunteers and more partners to the grassroots nonprofit coordinated largely via WhatsApp chats and Facebook posts and based in Piedmont, South Carolina.

A year later, what is now Seuk's Army transports two to three times as many animals as it did before, Gregory said.

Pilots use their own planes and pay flight costs. Galley, her husband and co-founder pilot Jerry Stephens, and other volunteers have largely underwritten veterinary bills, supplies and other needs.

In a nation where shelters and rescue organizations take in millions of cats and dogs annually, and hundreds of thousands are euthanized for reasons that can include lack of space, rescue flights open new foster possibilities for agencies like the Heard County Animal Control Center in Franklin, Georgia. With its 20 kennels always full and animals sometimes doubled up, the center works with Seuk's Army to transport as many as eight pets a week across the country.

Rescue flights are a logistical feat

Volunteers wore T-shirts bearing Kim's photo as they unloaded, walked, played with, cleaned up after, and reloaded the dozens of animals that came through Culpeper on the memorial flights last month.

Stephens and others had flown the creatures from South Carolina, Georgia and other Southern locales. Other pilots would take them on to Northeastern airports, in a logistical puzzle that ultimately spanned about 16 airfields, seven planes, many cars and vans and quick adaptations to weather forecasts. 

When departure times neared, leashed dogs waited on the tarmac like a crowd at an airport boarding gate, in a loose line with various degrees of fidgetiness.

There was Daisy, a bloodhound whose owner had died, and Copper, a hound who had been surrendered amid a divorce. Middie had been abandoned, pregnant, in Georgia. Jenny, a pit mix, and her puppies had been facing euthanasia at a shelter, Gregory said.

Puppies get a bird's-eye view

Seventy-five hundred feet over the mid-Atlantic countryside, co-pilot Michael Nuzback turned around in his seat.

"Hello, puppies. Come say hi!" he said, unlatching a crate and helping one of Jenny's pups out.

Another followed for a brief stint up front. The volunteer pilots were flying a turboprop plane owned by Pilots to the Rescue, a charity that collaborates periodically with Seuk's Army. 

The pups, which seemed more interested in the pilots' laps than in the view of the Chesapeake Bay, were tucked back in their crate before night fell.

They and the other dozens of animals aboard eventually landed at Groton-New London Airport in Connecticut. It was the final destination for Jenny, her puppies and some of the others; the rest were flying on to New Jersey.

In the small, bright Connecticut terminal, volunteers with local rescue groups cradled the puppies before heading off to foster homes.

"They're all headed to people's homes," volunteer Danielle Barth said. "A warm house."