Iraqi air force soars through U.S.-guided exercise

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Amanda Callahan
  • 447th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
NEW AL MUTHANA AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Members of the Coalition Air Force Training Team assigned to the 370th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron here have been training and mentoring Iraqi air force members in their functional areas for years. 

Recently, the 370th AEAS staff partnered with members of the 447th Air Expeditionary Group at Sather Air Base, Iraq, to evaluate how well Iraqi functional areas communicated and responded with each other during a ground emergency exercise here.

The American Airmen evaluated the notification of each of the areas, and the reactions of the Iraqi aircrew, maintenance crew, fire department, air traffic controllers, command post and ambulance service. After it was revealed to the aircrew that a gas turbine compressor was on fire (simulated), the Iraqi air force members went into action. 

"Most of my people, especially firefighters, they are new at this," said General Kareem, the Iraqi air base commander. "We need more exercises on the aircraft. Otherwise, they were very good, and we love it, me and my people."

They may be new at ground emergency exercises, but the fire department's evaluators sang the praises of the firemen to the general during an outbrief after the exercise was completed.

"I think the fire department exceeded what we expected of them," said Senior Master Sgt. Arthur Patrie, a 447th Expeditionary Civil Engineer firefighter, deployed from the Rhode Island Air National Guard. "Their motivation; enthusiasm; their willingness to get out there; their aggressiveness -- it gave us a strong foundation to build on."

The praises didn't stop with the fire department. 

The Iraqi command post personnel thought on their feet and did "very, very well; better than expected," said Master Sgt. David Satchell, from the 447th AEG command post. He recommended the Iraqi command post keep more detailed records of events, and even created a checklist and events log for them to use as a template.

"They hit everything almost by memory," said Sergeant Satchell, deployed from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. "I told them it'd be better if they have some sort of record-keeping so that the youngest guy would know what to do in this situation."

Although the Iraqi air force members performed beyond expectations, there were a few recommendations to help them prepare for not only a ground emergency, but also a larger force in the future.

"This is a base of a few hundred guys, and only half are here at any one time with very few airplanes," said Col. Mark Brunworth, the 370th AEAS commander who is deployed from Yokota Air Base, Japan. "[The U.S. Air Force does] things the way we do because we can take any one person out of it and plug a new person in, and the person you plug in knows exactly what's going on. Here, they all know each other. It's like a big family. So we're working to lay the groundwork for when they do get bigger, when there are 1,000 people on this one base, they will have those procedures in place."

Rebuilding an air force isn't done overnight.

"Baby steps -- next time we'll make it a little more complicated, surprise them with it, more injects," Colonel Brunworth said. "... Iin March, we didn't know how the command post and fire department would even get notified; that's where we were at; that took until April to fix. Now, we've been able to put it into action. We're making a lot of progress with baby steps."

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