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| Press Release Number: EPX200307032 | 03-Jul-03 |
Fleet rates Pax SAR team best H-3 command |
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| BY JAMES DARCY Public Affairs NAVAIR PATUXENT RIVER, MD-The Pax River Search and Rescue team is the best H-3 Sea King command in the Navy, Atlantic Fleet examiners concluded June 27, following the team's annual Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization evaluation. The news comes just two weeks after the team earned an outstanding grade on its annual SAR evaluation, a different but equally rigorous test of team members' qualifications. The NATOPS evaluation is a comprehensive, week-long inspection of the team's overall operations, as well as a test of team members' knowledge of the UH-3H Sea King in which they perform their mission. For the week of NATOPS, life is lived under a microscope, explained AMC Robert Mirabal, SAR leading chief petty officer. The SAR evaluation is similar, but focuses more on the actual search and rescue techniques practiced "out the door" than on procedures in the aircraft. Examiners for the two evaluations are subject-matter experts from the Atlantic Fleet, and they practice a brand of bare-lightbulb scrutiny that would make the Internal Revenue Service blush. Both SAR and NATOPS evaluations begin with page-by-page inspections of all the team members' records and paperwork, Mirabal said, to ensure that everyone is current on training, qualifications, flight hours and designations. The records go back to the start of a Sailor's flying career, and must be flawless and complete. Next come the written tests - detailed questions about every search and rescue technique used in the fleet for the SAR evaluation, ins and outs of aircraft operations for the NATOPS. The NATOPS exam is the longer of the two, with pilots and enlisted crew answering 40 open-book and 80 closed-book questions, such as "What pitch and roll limits should be maintained during emergency lubrication system operations?" The team's cumulative average was 99.5 percent, with more than half of those who took the test getting all 120 questions correct. For the SAR evaluation, the fun stuff starts on day two, after the tests and record reviews are over. First comes the physical readiness test - pull-ups, then a timed 100-yard obstacle course that must be completed while carrying two 50-pound dumbbells, then a one mile timed march carrying a 40-pound rescue litter. After a short break to change gear, everybody heads for the pool. Sporting rescue harnesses, snorkels and swim fins, the crew members begin a 500-meter swim, at the end of which they immediately grab a "victim" whom they must pull along with them for another 400 meters. They have 27 minutes to complete the exercise. In the final stretch, as the swimmers try to suck enough air through their snorkels to feed their burning lungs and cough out the water that inevitably floods in, their teammates urge them on from poolside. "Come on, pick it up!" someone shouts, and the evaluators check their watches. The grueling test is a new standard added this year to the qualification requirements for Navy search and rescue swimmers. During this year's round of SAR evaluations, every command on the East Coast has had swimmers fail the test, Mirabal said. That was before Pax River. The team's worst time is under 25 minutes; Mirabal has the best, finishing the 900 meters in 19 minutes and 30 seconds. After the laps, AD2 Jake Baker performs simulated rescues of downed aviators, including parachute disentanglements. Evaluators are in the pool with snorkels and masks, watching above and below the surface. Next comes a rappelling demonstration from a 70-foot tower, followed by a hike into the woods to rescue Gabe, the team's 180-pound dummy. Gabe has ejected from his plane and hangs in his parachute 60 feet above the ground, tangled up in tree branches. The rescuers grab climbing spikes, belts, rope bags and helmets, then plan their ascent. A short while later, rescue swimmer AT2 Dan Nangle is hanging from a line strung between two adjacent trees, attaching himself to Gabe. On the ground, HM2 Toby Climer strains at a belaying line that will support both Nangle and the dummy on the descent back to Mother Earth. When the long and complicated rescue is done, it's time for the evaluators to take their shots and call out every little mistake. "I've got nothing," says AMC William Clark. "Outstanding." The next day focuses on helicopter operations. The crew of an S-3B Viking has had to eject, the team is told; two aviators are in the water, one is in a field and one is hanging on the side of a cliff. Team members spread out to take up their victim positions, and the helo launches with the evaluators aboard. In the 60-degree water at the mouth of the Patuxent River, Lt. Brian Applegate is trying to stay warm. He is the new SAR division officer, and has volunteered to serve as a victim to show his support for the enlisted rescuers in his command. Floating beside him in the water, HM3 Sean Neuroth cheerily notes that their survival time in the chilling water is projected to be just a few hours. Then the helicopter arrives on scene, and soon Baker is jumping out the door to begin the rescue. Once Applegate and Neuroth are safe, the helicopter screams away to find the cliff where another SAR team member is hanging onto a tree trunk to keep from falling into the river far below. By the time the helicopter lands back on the flight line, the team has demonstrated nearly every rescue technique available to them, and demonstrated them well. "This is one of the finest teams we've ever looked at," said HMC Scott Adams, one of the Atlantic Fleet SAR evaluators. "There's a lot of esprit de corps here, and it shows in everything they do." The pilots, too, acquitted themselves admirably. Air Operations Officer and SAR pilot Cmdr. Bob Cameron flew a separate pilot evaluation hop, earning a perfect 4.0 score. A week later, the team was back under the magnifying glass for the NATOPS evaluation, once again with something to prove. Much of the pressure this time fell on AT2 Angela Cox, who is the NATOPS instructor for the rest of the team. "It's very unusual for a first-tour aircrewman to be NATOPS instructor," Mirabal explained, "but she was chosen for her outstanding aircraft knowledge and leadership." Cox is evaluated in the air on both standard and emergency procedures, then is judged on her ability to be an evaluator herself, testing and critiquing another crew member. The enlisted team as a whole will be judged by her performance; if she makes a mistake, everyone will pay for it. Instead, she hits it out of the park. On another flight, Lt. Craig Kahrs represents the pilots and proves that the "bus drivers" are as squared away as the rescuers they command. On the morning of June 27 the NATOPS evaluators delivered their results to Capt. Dane Swanson, Pax River commanding officer. "The enlisted crew took zero discrepancies," Mirabal said of the final results. "I've never seen anybody go without taking any hits, even for something minor. ... The evaluators took a copy of our flight audit board and training instruction to show to other commands as an example." "They just confirmed what I already knew," said Swanson, "that this SAR team sets the standard for every other command of its kind in the Navy." |
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