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Canadian and American SAR Techs exit from an American HC-130 Hercules over 19 Wing Comox Photo Credit: MCpl Robert Bottrill, CF Combat Camera

Confronting an Arctic Nightmare - Canadian, U.S., Russian SAR experts train for Arctic Air Disaster

By Captain Jeff Manney

Billowing smoke and desperate cries for help turned a tranquil farmer’s field into a scene of carnage this April as the Canadian Forces staged a mammoth, multinational air disaster exercise on Vancouver Island.

Arctic SAREX 2007 marked the twelfth time military search and rescue experts from Canada and the United States, along with their civilian counterparts from Russia, joined forces to train in the mass casualty exercise. All three countries share Arctic geography and a common understanding of what an air disaster in the region would entail.

Arctic SAREX 2007 marked the twelfth time military search and rescue experts from Canada and the United States, along with their civilian counterparts from Russia, joined forces to train in the mass casualty exercise. All three countries share Arctic geography and a common understanding of what an air disaster in the region would entail.

The action began 24 hours later as Canadian Forces search and rescue technicians and U.S. Air Force pararescuemen parachuted into a group of 50 mock casualties. This was a major air disaster, or MAJAID, an incident well beyond the capacity of the normal search and rescue system and one likely to last at least 72 hours.

SAR Tech Master Corporal Rod Smith attends to a casualty from a simulated air crash at a collection point Photo Credit: MCpl Robert Bottrill, CF Combat Camera

Picking their way amongst the dead and injured, the rescuers found themselves confronted with the unique challenges of a northern mission: severe injuries, limited supplies, tremendous distances, and, were this for real, unbearable cold.

It was a scenario that played out for real just 16 years ago, when in 1991 a Canadian Forces Hercules aircraft went down near Alert, the world’s most northerly permanently inhabited settlement. Five died in the crash, but 13 others endured a 32-hour wait for rescue while a blizzard raged around them. Only the cooperation of Canadian and U.S. authorities, and the heroism of military rescuers, who pulled off a daring air and ground operation in the face of the storm, ensured their survival.

“The loss of the Hercules was a very sobering experience for our nation,” Gagliardi said. “It showed the practical challenges of search and rescue in the north.”

The first Arctic SAREX occurred just two years later, in Tiksi, Siberia. The three countries have shared hosting responsibilities ever since, continuing to demonstrate their methods, sharing their expertise and learning to integrate their operations.

A sharp worldwide rise in air travel – including a significant increase in transpolar traffic, has underlined the need for a common proficiency in Arctic rescue. International overflights of Canada alone jumped by more than 50 per cent between 2001 and 2005, reaching almost 150,000 annually. That number is six times higher in Russia.

Fortunately for travelers, that increase has been met by improvements in the skills of rescuers, advances in equipment design and a greater facility at employing the two. This edition of Arctic SAREX, for instance, marked the first time a Canadian Aurora dropped its 20-person Arctic rescue kit outside of a trial environment.

Not to be outdone, a Hercules aircraft followed with a drop of its 5,000kg MAJAID kit. The kit contains enough supplies for 60 people, its own dedicated support crew of 12 Army paratroopers and can include an Argo all-terrain vehicle.

The realism in the air added to the realism on the ground. Given the projected length of a real MAJAID, rescuers camped out overnight next to their patients, tending them as they would real casualties. In the morning they awoke to the steady beat of rotor blades, as a shuttle of Cormorant helicopters, a Griffon and a U.S. HH-60G Pavehawk landed to transfer the casualties to a forward base hastily established 40 kilometers north.

Here the final stages of any northern rescue played out as Canadian Forces Medical Officers and Physician’s Assistants took over from the rescuers. Dividing survivors according to the severity of their injuries, they prepared them for what would, in reality, be a much longer journey to hospitals in the south.

Since the Canadian Force’s responsibility in a MAJAID ends when survivors are delivered to a competent medical authority, these final transfers heralded the end of Arctic SAREX 2007. As the casualties regained the use of broken limbs and wiped away their grisly make-up, observing staff from 1 Canadian Air Division predicted the exercise’s effects on rescuers would be a little more permanent.

“They’ll all be a little wiser as to how it should work,” said 1 CAD Director of Plans Col. Grant Smith. “They’re going to realize these are hugely complicated affairs, where information management is extremely important.”

The skills learned here, he added, need not apply just to a major air disaster. “It could be a forest fire, a flood, a cruise ship accident. What we’ve proved here is that we can get somewhere in a hurry, treat mass casualties and get them somewhere for treatment. It’s a validation of our ability to respond.”

A former navigator on the CP-140 Aurora and electronic warfare officer on the CT-133 Silver Star, Captain Jeff Manney is currently the Air Reserve Public Affairs Officer for Canada’s western region. He writes extensively on military matters from his home in Lantzville on Vancouver Island.

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