CTWG: Final SAR EVAL Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Hartford, CT) 8 November, 2009 - The Connecticut Wing of the Civil Air Patrol combined with staff from the Rhode Island Wing, conducted a graded, multi-incident simulated training exercise this weekend. Under the watchful eyes of United States Air Force Evaluation Judges, they successfully located and secured a simulated aircraft crash site and treated its victims, as well as a simulated missing person search in a Connecticut State Park.

In addition to the missions above, they also were tasked with other unexpected and concurrent operational emergencies. They air lifted emergency medications, secured the command facility from a potential outside threat, adapted to power and communications breakdowns, treated a senior team member’s emergency heart attack, located and inspected a potential hazardous waste dump and provided updated multi-media information to the press, public and State agencies throughout the exercise. These tasks required the detailed coordination of the highly trained, unpaid, volunteer members located all throughout the state.

To simulate the severity of real life emergency stressors, all of the missions were crammed into a very tight time period involving five fully operational aircraft and over a hundred team members including base staff, pilots, observers, mission scanners, photographers and many senior members and cadets in the field. Brainard Airport in Hartford was established as the Base of Operations. Mission flights launched from Brainard and other Connecticut airfields. The ground teams deployed from the Brainard Command Base and from other squadrons throughout the state.

The senior members served on the command staff, aircraft and on the ground teams. They flew a number of different search missions, ferried packages and conducted advanced photographic and surveillance technology missions. The cadets served as both mission base security and staff assistants and made up the lions share of the ground team force deploying in Civil Air Patrol vans to search their assigned areas on foot and with the aid of electronic tracking devices. The ground teams are the members who confirm the mission objective has been reached.