Lives hang on exploits of search-and-rescue crews

Press, 2 August 1985, Page 18

Lives hang on exploits of search-and-rescue crews

By

LINDA HARRISON

Seasick sailors, premature babies, divers with the bends, injured trampers, and many others owe their lives to the round-the-clock search and rescue surveillance by the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The service in the Canterbury area is provided by the crews of fixed wing Friendship aircraft and two Iroquois helicopters based at Wigram. The Iroquois detachment comprises five pilots and two crewmen, of whom two pilots and a crewman are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For the pilots and crewmen it means that half of their life is spent waiting for a call that could send them airborne within minutes. Until about 20 months ago the crews on search and rescue standby had to stay at home during their off-duty time, or at least be at the end of a telephone where they could be reached in an emergency. Squadron Leader Brian Phillips, the detachment commander, found that meant he could not mow his lawns or go for a run. Now all that has changed with the advent of the paging system. The telephone is always tried first, but a look down the list of places the crewmen have been found when paged shows just how much more freedom the electronic device has given them. They have been paged in from 10-pin bowling, the tenth hole on a golf course, the bumper boats, and from running around the Wigram airfield. During working hours the crews on standby have to be ready for a 15-minute call-out. The Air Force has a requirement to be available at two hours’ notice for search and rescue, but aims to be in the air within 30 minutes. Search and rescue calls are received first by the police, who decide how best they should be

handled. If airborne support is required, the police may decide to call on the Air Force, through an air directing officer who will decide which type of aircraft is most suitable and alert its crew. The crew will then sort out the equipment it will need for the job, from the range of Iroquois equipment stored at the ready in a hangar at Wigram. It includes survival bags, stretchers, first-aid kits, dinghies, monsoon buckets, and equipment for carrying underslung loads. If one of Wigram’s two Iroquois is working away from the base, for example flying in support of the army in some other part of the country, then the other must be on standby wherever it is at the time, for search and rescue anywhere from Nelson to south of Timaru — the area covered by the Wigrambased aircraft. When they are not performing search and rescue work or training for it, the No. 3 Squadron crews are supporting the three branches of the services or the police. Search and rescue is only fourth or fifth on their list of tasks, although it assumes prime importance once a call is received. “It is satisfying. It is very demanding. We sit around a lot and so when we get called out we appreciate it,” Squadron Leader Phillips says. Because search and rescue operations are almost always done in less than perfect conditions, the training for them is crucial. “The Press” was invited to join a training flight with No. 3 Squadron into the Arthurs Pass area recently. As part of that training an Air Force photographer was on board the Iroquois, taking photographs of

the mountainous terrain where many of the squadron’s rescues are made. The photographs will be used for briefings at callouts in the future. Our training flight consisted of a photographic reconnaisance around the Arthurs Pass area, with Squadron Leader Phillips and Sergeant Dexter Sharp pointing out areas where they had made rescues in the past. Squadron Leader Phillips and Flying Officer Mark Woodhouse practised approaches to ridges, taking into account winds and air currents sweeping off the mountainous terrain. A smoke cannister was dropped

to mark a landing spot and to indicate wind currents as the helicopter returned to try and land over the cannister. The strength of wind currents on a relatively calm day was enough to convince the helicopter’s passengers of the challenge as the aicraft was slowly and deliberately positioned over the desired spot in spite of currents that seemed intent on forcing it in other directions. The danger and difficulty of the bad conditions under which rescues are so often made needed no explaining. “The mountains don’t respect anyone,” says Squadron Leader Phillips. The winching equipment in the Iroquois is a tremendous boon to search and rescue work; enabling crewmen to be lifted off vessels, mountaineers off inaccessible slopes. Every two or three months the crews fly to Mount Cook to work with rangers and mountaineers there, familiarising themselves with the conditions, the people, and the location of the huts that they might be required to fly to and from in the future. “At the beginning of summer and spring, as soon as we get a bit of sunshine, people rush off to the mountains. We get called out when there is a change of weather. The holidays are worse,” Squadron Leader Phillips says. But the mountains are not their only workplace. Other jobs have involved transportation of premature babies to hospitals with facilities to care for their special needs and carrying injured people to hospital where the road journey might prove too uncomfortable or dangerous. A favourite story relates to a rescue some years ago when a boat off Kaikoura was manned by a very seasick sailor. The Air Force was called in to take him off the

boat on New Year’s Eve and a crewman was duly winched down. Unfortunately, the seas grew worse and the helicopter was forced to turn back without its crewman and charge, leaving the unfortunate pair to spend an unusual New Year’s Eve. Air Force search and rescue involvement in Canterbury is high; in other parts of the country, especially Auckland and Wellington, private helicopter operators have a much greater involvement. “There will be cases where they still need us,” says Squadron Leader Phillips, when search teams need to be ferried into the search area and the greater capacity of the Iroquois is essential; or where a private helicopter does not have a winching capability. “Outside of the'Air Force there is not much requirement to use a winch. It is expensive to use and to keep up your experience on it.” He has the final word, as one who has spent many hours rescuing others from life-threatening situations. “Mountains are for looking at"