Mission 07-M-1585 opened as the many other ELT missions handled by the members of Florida Wing.  The page came in to the on Duty Wing Alerting Officer “ELT – Webster Fl”.  After following procedures and verifying the mission with AFRCC, the WAO passed the mission on to an Incident Commander for location and silencing and the IC.  As per normal mission procedure, the IC called AFRCC to verify the mission and again, received the usual briefing: 4 Satellite merges, No missing or overdue aircraft, and no airborne reports.

 

Calls were made to the Group 9 alerting officer and a UDF team and aircrew were requested.  The alerting officer rousted the appropriate resources and advised that the aircrew would be going to ISM to get an aircraft as that was the closet available.  The UDF and aircrews prepared and departed their homes for their meeting points to work the mission.

 

A half hour later, as the 1st teams were in their vehicles to their meeting points, the call came from AFRCC to the IC “ We just received a report from JAX Center…..” and things quickly changed.  Further information from JAX Center advised that a pilot had threatened suicide with his aircraft and had departed Jacksonville earlier that morning.  JAX Center also reported a Last Known Position (LKP) by radar that was nestled in the middle of the numerous ELT merges earlier provided.

 

Things quickly went into high gear.  Notifications were made to Wing staff and up the chain to the Wing commander, the Wing Mission Response SAR section quickly took on the function of INTEL and provided critical information throughout the duration of the mission.  Additionally, in a desire to beat bad weather and get an aircrew in the area quicker, a 2nd air SAR team in the Tampa area was alerted and quickly responded and was airborne in just over an hour.

 

At this same time, the UDF team from Leesburg, the IC and his accompanying ground team, and numerous law enforcement officers reached the primary search area.  It wasn’t long before the initial UDF team reported a loud ELT signal about 5 miles from the LKP.  The IC and his ground team were quickly escorted to the area by the responding law enforcement agencies as the 1st UDF team continued tracking and triangulating on the signal.

 

As the IC and team arrived at the location of the best audible tone, the CAP Aircraft from Hillsborough One Sr Squadron in Tampa arrived on scene and reported acquisition of signal as well.  Working quickly, the aircrew and ground teams almost simultaneously homed in on the same point.  As the ground team was coordinating and making initial entry into the wilderness area, the aircrew reported sighting of the downed aircraft.  The aircrew was able to guide the ground team and accompanying law enforcement agents through the tall weeds and brush to the scene.  The ground cover was such that the wreckage could not be seen by the teams on the ground until they were about 100 feet away.

 

The outcome was unfortunate.  The aircraft was destroyed, and a half hour after arriving at the wreckage site, the victim was located about 100 feet from the aircraft, thrown from the wreckage during the impact.

 

How many times do we all respond to “just another ELT” without our full compliment of field gear, or in a very casual manner?  This mission serves to remind us all, until we have eyes on, we must approach every ELT as having a possible distress element.  In this case, a quicker response would not have made a difference to the outcome, but the next time could be different.

 

Thanks go out to the members who responded so dutifully to this mission and put their training to use:

 

Leesburg UDF Team:

   Maj Peter Strohl

   Capt Margaret Merkich

Group 9 Aircrew:      

   Maj Jack Rabon, MP

   Capt George Merkich, MS

Group 3 Aircrew:      

   Lt Col Dave Lawson, MP

   2nd Lt Alisa Linares, MS/MO-T

Ground Team:          

   Maj George Barker – GBD

   1Lt Ken Leidy – UDF

Intel:                         

   1Lt Nick Simoncini

Incident Commander:

   1Lt Len Goellner