Samaritan's Purse jet lands in Alaska with massive shipment of medical gear for coronavirus response

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A Samaritan’s Purse cargo plane carrying a massive shipment of medical supplies for coronavirus relief landed in Alaska Monday afternoon.

The Rev. Franklin Graham, the Christian charity’s president and CEO, announced the arrival in a Facebook post.

“Yesterday afternoon our Samaritan's Purse DC-8 arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, with over 8 tons of cargo including hospital beds, gloves, disposable gowns, and other medical supplies,” he wrote on Tuesday.

Graham posted images showing a crew of masked workers unloading the jet in front of a backdrop of snowy Alaskan mountains. He said his son, son-in-law and granddaughter personally accompanied the supplies.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who met the shipment on the tarmac, said the medical equipment will go to rural parts of the state to support the health care workers dealing with the crisis on the front lines.

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Dunleavy said he requested the supplies from Graham personally to help the state deal with the pandemic.

Alaska had at least 213 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of Tuesday, according to the state's COVID-19 outbreak information website -- but 22 of them were diagnosed in the last 24 hours.

“We pray that the medical supplies we are bringing to Alaska will help many remote villages to stay healthy during this global health crisis,” the charity said in a post on its website.

Alaska has implemented a number of measures to try and slow the spread of the virus, including social isolation, limiting nonessential travel within the state and asking anyone who arrives in the state from elsewhere to self-quarantine for two weeks.

Graham said he would next go to New York to check on another Samaritan’s Purse operation there.

The nonprofit set up emergency field hospitals in both New York City’s Central Park and northern Italy to help local health care providers deal with overwhelming caseloads in both places.

“Please continue to pray for all who are working to save lives from the coronavirus,” Graham wrote.

Samaritan’s Purse has sent aid missions around the world since 1970, according to its website.

“We never thought that we would come to New York,” the charity’s vice president, Ken Isaacs, told "Fox & Friends Weekend" host Pete Hegseth on Saturday. “We never thought we would be in the United States with a hospital -- much less in Central Park. But, we are here."

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The United States had seen at least 386,817 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Tuesday afternoon, including 12,285 deaths. Italy had at least 135,586 cases with at least 17,127 deaths.