British pilot, founder of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), and former Royal Air Force (RAF) squadron leader, Jack Hemmings, died on 24 January, at 103.

He is survived by his wife Kate, son Adrian and three grandchildren.

A legacy of service

Born on 10 August 1921 in Bentham (Yorkshire, England), Hemmings joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 at the age of 19. He was stationed in British India during the World War II, where he was promoted to squadron leader of 353 Squadron and won the Air Force Cross in 1946 for ‘exemplary gallantry while flying’.

After the war, Jack, along with fellow RAF veteran Stuart King, “wanted to use aviation for good”, so that they founded Mission Aviation Fellowship in 1945, which has since become the world’s largest humanitarian airline.

They undertook the first ever humanitarian survey flight across central Africa in 1948, to assess the needs of some of the world’s most isolated communities. During that flight, they hit a banana tree and the aircraft was destroyed but both of them survived with just cuts and bruises.

Hemmings won the Dungeness to Le Touquet Air Race in 1985, and the. RAF’s Master Air Pilot Award in 2017.

The war veteran continued flying until he was 102. For his 100 birthday, Hemmings performed aerobatics. The following year, he took control of a Miles Gemini aircraft for the first time in nearly 75 years. When he took control of a Spitfire last year, at 102, it is believed he was the oldest British pilot to do so.

Above all his achivements, for the British pilot the most important thing was “the number of people whose lives have been enriched by MAF´s services. MAF is the Good Samaritarian of the skies”.

MAF’s work

Mission Aviation Fellowship is a a Christian mission organisation which aims “to bring help, hope, and healing through aviation, in order to see isolated people changed by the love of Christ”.

“Our pilots and personnel deliver relief workers, doctors, pastors, Bibles, school books, food, medicines – everything that can only be safely and speedily transported by air”, they explain in the MAF website.

MAF provides a subsidised flight service to over 2000 relief and mission groups, flying inin more than 25 countries all over the world.

Since 1945, the Christian organisation “has had a vision to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. Today, MAF is still serving the Church and those who plant churches, encourage Christians in distant communities and translate the Bible into the 'heart' languages of different people groups”.

It also participayes in educational, disaster relief, and peace-making projects, flying to inaccessible places and conflict zones.