Plane with hundreds of thousands of pieces of PPE for VA facilities arrives in NH

MANCHESTER, N.H. —

Another shipment of personal protective equipment touched down in Manchester on Saturday, and much of it is destined for Veterans Affairs facilities across the country.

The chartered FedEx Boeing 777-200 is the largest cargo plane to ever land at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, and it was carrying critical supplies to keep people safe.

It's becoming almost a weekly occurrence: a planeload of personal protective equipment delivered to New Hampshire from China. To date, more than 1,200 tons of PPE has been secured by inventor Dean Kamen, made possible through partnerships in the public and private sectors.

"Once we started getting all this really high-quality stuff really coming in, instead of being done with it as a one-shot deal, more and more folks around the U.S. that are in desperate need started calling us,” Kamen said.

This was the 15th shipment of PPE to the airport and the 10th dedicated to VA facilities.

“It helps the workers who are on the frontlines, and it helps the veterans who are being cared for,” said Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

“Veterans need to know that it's safe to come and get health care,” said Deborah Scher, executive adviser to the VA secretary.

Boxes of 450,000 hospital gowns were offloaded by members of the New Hampshire National Guard to be distributed to the VA facilities.

“Everyone in New Hampshire should be excited about this the fact that the entire country gets to benefit. Our veterans across this country get to benefit from this partnership and this facilitation that we've been able to manage here in New Hampshire. It's a great source of pride,” said Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.

“What the state of New Hampshire has created here is really a model of partnerships that represents the best of America,” Scher said.

Officials say there are more shipments like this to come.