Aviation News Item: 02539

27th May 2009

Source: verticalmag.com

Since the United States Coast Guard established Air Station Sitka, Alaska in 1977, its aircrews have saved over 2,000 lives, assisted thousands of others, and saved hundreds of millions of dollars in vessel property from the perils of the sea. In this two-part series, Lt. Adam Merrill describes a typical day in the life of a Coast Guard pilot at Air Station Sitka.

"OS1, if we get a launch request before 2200, hit the SAR alarm first thing, and then pipe as much info as you've got about the case so maintenance control can get a head start configuring the aircraft with extra fuel tanks or de-watering pumps as necessary. If the request is after 2200, find me or Lt. Merrill first, and we'll talk to the command center before we wake everybody up."

An Air Station Sitka MH-60J lands on a southeast Alaska beach to deliver aids-to-navigation technicians.
Photo by AET1 Bill Greer, USCG.

It's just after 1445 at Air Station Sitka and the start of another duty day, which will run from 1500 hours until our relief at 1500 the following day. On this day, like most duty days, I pulled into base around 1430, giving me just enough time to jump into my flight suit and take a look at the weather before the brief. The standard search and rescue (SAR) crew for a U.S. Coast Guard HH-60J Jayhawk helicopter is two pilots, a flight mechanic, and a rescue swimmer, and at 1445 we all made our way into the Opcen for the oncoming duty brief.

First, the operations watchstander (OWS) briefed us on standard items including the current airfield weather, the status of the three helicopters assigned to our unit, and the location of the command cadre (in case something should come up during our duty day requiring command notification). Now the senior duty officer (SDO) is running through specific items for our crew.

As a rule, the Coast Guard doesn't send nuggets to Alaska, so - unlike Air Stations in the lower 48 - the wardrooms of Air Stations Sitka and Kodiak are filled with multi-tour aircraft commanders (ACs), experienced in our respective airframes. Though we're both ACs in the mighty Jayhawk, the other pilot I'm on duty with today is senior to me in rank, so he's the SDO, and will be the pilot-in-command (PIC) for any flights during the next 24 hours.

He continues his briefing: "Weather around the AOR (area of responsibility) well, what you see out the window is what you get. Some low clouds, marginal VFR everywhere, but the visibility isn't too bad; the field's calling scattered at 400, overcast at 1,000 and four miles vis right now. As usual, the east side of the AOR is forecasting the worst weather. Petersburg is calling for conditions down to about 200 and a half tonight, and Wrangell is about the same. If we get sent that direction, we'll take a hard look at the weather before we punch in.

"We're not scheduled to fly tonight, but we do have a 0800 ramp time tomorrow morning for a five-hour patrol north. We'll ROL in Juneau and get back to home plate in time for the relief. Questions anybody? Alright, that's it."

OK, the brief's complete; we're now the ready crew for southeast Alaska. I grab my helmet bag and head down to the hangar deck. I swing by the swimmer shop, where the aviation survival technicians (rescue swimmers) are busy completing scheduled maintenance on all the survival gear we carry in the helo. They're responsible for the aircraft life rafts, the de-watering pumps that we hoist down to sinking ships, and our own aircrew survival vests.

The vests have an integral harness that can be used to hoist us out of the water, and they contain survival gear including emergency flares, an EPIRB, and my personal favorite, the HEEDs bottle - or Helicopter Emergency Egress Device, a mini-SCUBA setup with about 5 minutes of air (depending on how rabbit-fast your breaths are). We carry one in our vest on every flight for the same reason that we wear dry suits and carry life rafts and "Gumby" cold-weather exposure suits in the helicopter: "just in case." Unlike its predecessor, the H-3 Pelican, the HH-60J is not an amphibious aircraft, and it is notoriously top-heavy. If we were to put one in the water for whatever reason, the engines and massive transmission system perched on top of the fuselage would cause the helicopter to roll inverted and then sink. (To further prepare ourselves for that unlikely possibility, Coast Guard helo crews undergo annual training in the infamous SWET chair, or Shallow Water Egress Trainer.)

Two Air Station Sitka MH-60Js form up to overfly the annual Alaska Day parade in Sitka.
Photo by AET1 Bill Greer, USCG.

After pre-flighting my survival vest and adjusting the myriad straps to fit me, I grab a pair of ANVIS-9 NVGs out of the locker and mount them to my helmet. I focus them on the Hoffman 20/20 set in the darkroom and then stow all my gear in the ready-crew cabinet by the door to maintenance control.

A few minutes in maintenance control going over the records for the 6002 with the watch captain familiarizes me with the recent gripes on our steed. With the aircraft's maintenance history in mind, I head back out to the hangar deck to pre-flight the plane. Starting at the nose of the helo, I work my way down the right side, around the tail and back up the left side, methodically reviewing each item on my personal pre-flight checklist. This ritual, completed the same way every time, breeds confidence that my aircraft will be ready should we need to launch out on the proverbial "dark and stormy" tonight.

My primary duty in the Coast Guard is to stand duty as a helo pilot. However, like all Coast Guard pilots, I've got several "collateral duties" to keep me busy when I'm not flying. When I get back up to my office, I spend the next couple of hours wading through e-mails and working on projects related to my current collaterals.

Having just finished dinner up in the galley, I'm sitting in the wardroom psyching myself up for another couple of hours in the office, when the SAR phone line rings at about 1745. The OWS picks up on the second ring, and I pick as well, to eavesdrop on a possible launch.

"Air Station Sitka operations, Petty Officer Smith on an un-secure line, how can I help you?" the OWS rattles off.

"Good evening. This is Lt. Jones calling from the District 17 Command Center in Juneau. We've got a medevac launch request for your H-60."

The OWS pulls out a blank SAR check-off sheet and starts running through the required information for a SAR launch. I listen with half my brain as I throw on my jacket, hang up the phone and head out the door.

The SDO was eavesdropping from his office as well, and we meet up in the passageway heading for the Opcen. The OWS puts the SAR controller from District on the speakerphone, as the SDO heads to the chart table and I start pulling up the weather.

"The patient is a 63-year-old female at the Petersburg clinic suffering from appendicitis," the controller says. "The highest level of care currently on-scene is a physician's assistant. The duty flight surgeon has already spoken to the PA, and they've concurred that the patient needs to have surgery within the next 6 hours."

The SAR controller keeps doling out the bad news: "We've already contacted civilian medevac services, but they reported that the weather's too bad for them to get in there."

I report from the weather terminal: "I think the LDA/DME into Petersburg only gets you down to about 1,500 feet, and their last METAR was calling overcast at 100 feet and 2 ½ miles vis. Weather gets lousier the farther east you go. Home plate is calling overcast at 2,800 with eight miles vis, but Port Alexander is 300 and two, Kake is 100 and 1 ¾, and Petersburg is 100 and 2 ½." The hits just keep on coming.

The SDO and I kick around various routes to Petersburg, and we decide that we'll head that direction, and if the weather gets undoable as we approach the airfield, we'll abort. We call Ops to brief him on the case, the weather, and our plan, and he's on board as well.

To be continued

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