Team Alpha, first team to begin the search The bushes behind CFB North Bay at Carmicheal Drive were kept busy Wednesday as search and rescue officials conducted mock plane crash training exercises.
The bushes behind CFB North Bay at Carmicheal Drive were kept busy Wednesday as search and rescue officials conducted mock plane crash training exercises.
"The exercise is the first to incorporate all jurisdictional level Emergency Response Teams from local police services to the Canadian Forces", explained Local Civil Air Search and Rescue Association Director (CASARA) for the North Bay Area, Tom Wilson.
“The ground search is a new exercise for the SAREX (Military Search Air Rescue Exercise). It’s never been tried before, but we thought it was time to try to get all the groups that normally would work in a search working together as a mixed group and share their skills,” he says.
“If this works out well, they’re hoping to incorporate it into the National SAREX each year and next year then, will move to Winnipeg.”
While the exercise is designed in a spirit of co-operation, it is also a friendly competition between each of the five teams comprised of one member from the North Bay service, OPP and Canadian Forces and CASARA.
Wilson explained that the day started with the teams called out because there was a downed plane and the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) has been transmitting since impact. Satellite readings give a ruff area location but cannot pin point the crash site, so the local ground teams have been deployed in half hour intervals to find the ELT using electronic equipment.
The teams racing against the clock search through all kinds of conditions they would come up against when involved in a real search that includes horrendous terrain that varies from mud bogs to thick wet dense bush in order to locate the ELT, crash site and survivors.
“Now sometimes the survivors might decide that they know the area well enough and they might have decided to walk. We hope that the people would stay in the location but sometimes they just feel in the situation is such that they would walk out and look for help on their own,” says Wilson.
“If that happens then we also have the ground search team for the OPP, City Police and the Military, if there are any clues they’re going to start through the bush looking for them.”
Wilson says the exercise is about as close to the real thing as they’re going to get, including victims made up to look like somebody has survived a crash.
Sgt. Mike Hunter from the North Bay Police Service said participating in the exercise is a golden opportunity.
“We’re getting the advantage. If we actually had an incident here where we had a downed plane in the bush or something like that, all four of the agencies involved would be coming together to work and we don’t get that opportunity on a regular basis.”
“So, this exercise allows the military the SAREX people, the CASARA people, BAYSAR, North Bay, and OPP to get together. Everyone has their own expertise. We learn from each other, open those lines of communication and make it successful for the exercise or any incident that would actually happen.”
In the end, Team Bravo won bragging rights as they were the first team to successfully navigate the course, locate the clues and extract the survivors.
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