Fernando Esparza

"This is UNSC Pelican Echo 216. Can you hear me?"

- Echo 216's pilot tries to hail a friendly signal. The Pelican Echo 216 is piloted by a serviceman of the United Nations Space Command Armed Forces who, at some point following the advent of late 2561, had a chance encounter with Spartan-II John-117 after being stranded in his dropship for some time around a shattered Halo ring.

Biography
At some point following the rise of the Created, he was stranded in space in his D77-TC Pelican near a damaged Halo ring. Eventually, his Pelican would stumble across SPARTAN-II John-117 floating in space, and the pilot would restore power to the Spartan's MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor (GEN3), reviving the Master Chief. Upon the Spartan's awakening, the pilot would express joy at the prospect of being able to make it home, and proceed to attempt to help with John's armor diagnostics before being asked for a status report. The pilot would simply respond saying that "we've lost everything". When the Pelican was hit by an EMP, the pilot would show fear at "them", before proceeding to lock himself in the Pelican's cockpit as John-117 opened the dropship's troop deployment bay for EVA.

Production notes

 * The pilot was first revealed in the Halo Infinite - E3 2019 - Discover Hope Trailer, in which he rescues John-117 from space. He was confirmed to be a new character for Halo Infinite in a blog post on Halo Waypoint on the same day.
 * He has the Human-Covenant war era UNSC insignia on his shoulder, rather than the post-war era emblem.

List of appearances

 * Halo Infinite