# SARS & Emergencies...



## cbt arms sub tech (17 Aug 2005)

Just out of curiousity, how does it work, when Search & Rescue teams deploy within Canada, do SAR Teams wear pagers at home & have duty shifts, so when emergencies occur weather on land or off a coast somewhere throughout Canada?

Cheers

Calgary, AB


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## I_Drive_Planes (17 Aug 2005)

That depends on what sort of SAR you are talking about.   In Canada there are three types of SAR: air, marine, and ground and inland waterway.   Air and marine SAR fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of National Defence (hadled by the Coast Guard and the Air Force).   Ground and inland waterway SAR is the responsibility of the local police authority, usually the RCMP, but it may be city PD, or provincial police force.   

A typical ground and inland waterway search would progress like this (in BC anyway):

Little Johnny goes missing, so his mom calls the RCMP.   The RCMP will refer it to either a general duty constable, or the rural patrol constable for the area.   The constable will respond and determine if SAR should be called.   He then calls the watch commander who calls Emergency Coordination Centre (ECC) in Vancouver (it doesn't always happen like that, but its typical).   ECC then rings the pagers on those of us in the group who carry them, and a search manager calls ECC back to get details on the search and determine the required course of action.   The search manager will then ring our pagers again with more info, and will contact the call out person who would initiate a group call out.   From there we would respond and carry out the search or rescue.   Being volunteers, civillian SAR pers. don't have duty shifts or anything like that, if available they go when called. 

A typical air search (in BC) looks like this:

Air traffic services has an overdue flightplan, or distress call, so after contacting all of the aiports aloairportsintended route of flight, they will call Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC, the military version of ECC) in Victoria.   ECC, depending on the location and availability of military assets may either send a military aircraft, or may dispatch a civillian aircraft from the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA) to fly the route of flight looking for an ELT signal, or smoke etc.   If this initial search is unsuccessful then ECC will either task CASARA to set up a search headquarters, or will assign a military search master to do the same.   From there the search would progress, calling in available military and civillian assecivilianer all of the search areas in detail.   

I'm not sure how a marine search goes (thats not my department!), but I'd imagine that it would look fairly similar to an air search.   Perhaps one of our resident SAR Techs can fill us in on that.

Planes


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## cbt arms sub tech (18 Aug 2005)

Thank you for the news, as I wasn't sure how Canadian Forces Members get the call, or if they're all on-call duty personel, such as a fire department, would live in a fire hall, awaiting a call...As all the time, you hear the Forces flying off shore to rescue boats in deep shit, or planes that go down in the mountains!


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## Zoomie (18 Aug 2005)

CF SAR crews usually are on duty for a 24 hour period of time.  During that time, 8 hours of which we are on a very tight leash of 30 minutes airborne once tasked.  The other 16 hours (during quiet hours 4pm - 8am) we are on a 2 hour launch window.  We maintain this posture 24/7, 365.25 days - there is a plane sitting right now in the hangar, loaded and ready to go.  We provide JRCC with a fixed wing asset and a helo asset - all other aircraft are the Squadron's for training and/or other lines of tasking.


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## Sf2 (19 Aug 2005)

ahh, the joys of SAR.

One moment I'll never forget in Comox, looking for a downed float plane.  During the co-ord brief:

Searchmaster - "how long can the Griffon stay up for?"
Fellow Griffon Guy - "About Cormorant plus 45 minutes....."

 ;D


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## Zoomie (19 Aug 2005)

I would expect that 2 hour restriction to be lifted soon enough - new TRHH are in along with a new set of inspection criteria.

We were very fortunate that 427 Sqn was playing in the area with 408's choppers - the Griffon made a great platform for the onerous task of shore crawling...


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## Sf2 (19 Aug 2005)

They were very useful, as the Griffon could get really down in the weeds.


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