Rescue Exercise Planned

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31633, 20 March 1968, Page 14

Rescue Exercise Planned

A search-and-rescue exercise to be held “somewhere in Otago” from March 28 to 31 will involve about 100 men, either in direct field work or in attendance at seminars to be held jointly in Christchurch and the area of the search, somewhere between Mount Cook and Fiordland.

The exercise will simulate the crash of a light aircraft in mountainous country, with two or three “injured,” but the location of the “mishap” has not been disclosed because this would defeat the purpose of the training. The exercise will be the

first of its kind to be held in the South Island, according to the head of the New Zealand Police Search and Rescue Organisation (Chief Inspector L. D. Bridge, oJ Wellington), who said the southern regional co-ordinat-ing centre of the S.A.R., at Christchurch Airport, would control communications. The exercise would test the efficiency of the centre and give another opportunity to the police and all others in volved in S.A.R. operations to test hand-operated crash position beacons. These are v.hJ. transmitters, the size of a pocket book, which sent out a constant distress signal for 48 hours over a 100-mile radius.

Most civil and R.N.Z.A.F aircraft are already fitted with such equipment, but the Police Department is trying

to interest aero clubs and private operators in it. A ground team will entei the area of the “crash” about a week before the exercise, to construct a "mock-up" of a crashed aircraft. The beacon will be set off at a given time and the first day of the exercise will be devoted to locating the scene of the “mishap.” Mountaineers equipped with the latest face rescue geai will be among the' ground searchers. About 80 observers, some of them from Christchurch, will accompany the search parties. In Christchurch, about 20 representatives of the Civil Aviation Department, R.N.Z.A.F., police, mountaineers and Amateur Radio Emergency Corps will be in the seminar team, which will be linked by closed-circuit television to the operations room at Christchurch Airport.