Wings like eagles

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 1st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: serving God in the air.

Steve Koch is a mild-mannered aviator who gives biplane tours over Louisville, Kentucky. But that’s not all he does. Koch’s other job is a volunteer missionary pilot in one of the more dangerous parts of the world. Here’s WORLD Associate Correspondent Travis Kircher.

KOCH: Okay, when you climb in here...

TRAVIS KIRCHER, REPORTER: It’s a sunny Friday evening at Bowman Field, a small general aviation airport in Louisville, Kentucky. 69-year-old Steve Koch is strapping passengers in for another tour in his WACO biplane.

Koch is a pilot with Classic Biplane Tours.

SOUND: [Engine Startup]

Once everyone is strapped in, Koch starts the seven cylinder, 275 horsepower engine. Then he radios the tower and taxis to Runway One-Five.

RADIO: Bowman Tower, Classic One is Ready. Classic One Bowman Tower, right turn approved, Runway One-Five, clear for takeoff, traffic Cessna, left base.

And with that, the plane is airborne.

SOUND: [Biplane taking off ]

Koch climbs to about 2,000 feet and levels off. Occasionally he dips the wing to point out some familiar landmarks.

BIPLANE TOUR: Well, there’s Cardinal Stadium, off to your right there. And we’re right directly overtop of Churchill Downs. Did you all get a good view of that?

If you think Koch sounds cool and collected in an airplane, you’re right. In fact, his first flight was 64 years ago.

STEVE KOCH: Right out here where we’re sitting right now, at Bowman Field, and they took me for an airplane ride. And I was about five years old. I was in the back seat, and when the airplane lifted off the ground, I looked down and I just couldn’t believe how cool that was.

At age 16, Koch was taking flying lessons, and it wasn’t long before he completed his first solo flight – a special milestone for any pilot.

KOCH: We had a rule out here on first solos. You had to buy the instructor a cup of coffee or a Coke. Usually it was a Coke. Cokes were 10 cents then and coffee was free – but they usually wanted the Coke. [LAUGHS]

Koch became an accomplished pilot. He got married and had two kids. In the mid-1990s, he became a Christian and started looking for a way to use airplanes for Christ. That's when his pastor pointed him to Agape Flights.

Based in Florida, Agape Flights is a missionary aviation organization making regular flights to isolated areas in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. For the past 15 years, Koch has split his time between flying jobs in Louisville, and delivering much-needed supplies to missionaries in those countries. That cargo can include Amazon deliveries, medical supplies, mail, household goods – even chickens!

KOCH: Now the chickens – we keep them up in the crew area, because they’ll get too cold in the back and they won’t survive. I even had a controller ask, ‘What’s all that – what’s that? That sounds like baby chickens in the background!’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s what it is!’”

The majority of Koch’s flights are to Haiti – flying into the capital, Port-au-Prince, before making stops at isolated cities like Cap-Haitian, Jeremie and Les Cayes. But in recent years, Haiti has become a much more dangerous place. The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 created a vacuum that led to widespread violence, gas shortages, and gang activity – including the kidnappings of 17 Christian missionaries from Christian Aid Ministries.

MARK STOCKELAND: I remember Steve getting out of the plane and going, "Holy cow, man! Look at all these guns and bulletproof vests!" I was like, "I know, dude!"

That’s Mark Stockeland. He’s the founder and CEO of Haiti Bible Mission in Jeremie, Haiti. Koch regularly flies in supplies for HBM, and Stockeland says with the recent instability, those shipments are more important than ever.

But last spring, Agape Flights suffered a setback.

KOCH: They attacked our plane.

While Koch and a team from Agape were helping to rebuild a Haitian church, protesters attacked their aircraft at the Les Cayes airport. Stockeland found out when a friend sent him a video.

SOUND: [HAITIANS ATTACKING PLANE]

STOCKELAND: They’ve literally stormed the airport, pushed the security fences down and literally got 100-and-something people jumping up and down on that plane, and they’ve pushed it into the street, and pushed it down the road a little bit and then lit it on fire and just burned it to the ground.

Stockland quickly sent armed security teams in trucks to drive Koch and his team out of Les Cayes and safely to Haiti Bible Mission in Jeremie. Koch says he was thankful for the response.

KOCH: It’s a pretty dangerous road from Les Cayes to Jeremie. It goes through the mountains and it’s – there’s a lot of carjackings and kidnappings that goes on that road.

They found out later the protesters mistook the plane for a government aircraft. But that incident underscores the dangers Koch and others face. When asked why he does it – why he volunteers to make these flights – Koch says it’s about obedience.

KOCH: You know, I just feel like this is a calling for me. I mean, why are the missionaries still there? You could ask them the same question.

Stockeland says he’s just glad missionary pilots like Koch are still in the air.

STOCKELAND: They were flying in little generators for us. They flew in our solar panels and batteries. But yeah. When he flies that stuff in, it’s like Christmas.

SOUND: [PLANE LANDING]

Back in Louisville, Koch glides in for a perfect landing at Bowman Field.

RADIO: Bowman Tower, Classic One is back inbound, Sierra. Classic One, Bowman Tower, straight in, Runway One-Five, cleared to land. Straight in, One-Five, cleared to land, Classic One.

SOUND: [PLANE WHEELS TOUCHDOWN]

And at age 69, he’s hoping younger pilots will also set a course for the mission field.

KOCH: Well, it’s not about the money. It’s about the heart. You know, if that’s your vocation – if that’s your passion – then go for it.

SOUND: [AIRPORT NOISE]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Travis Kircher at Bowman Field, in Louisville, Kentucky.

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