Exercise Atlantic Rescue tests search, rescue pros' skills

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  • By Tech. Sgt. Ben Gonzales
  • Air Force Print News
AVON PARK AIR FORCE RANGE, Fla. (AFPN) --  In a worst case scenario for pilots or warfighters in hostile territory, one thing is constant -- the Air Force will not leave a person behind. 

Securing that promise are combat search and rescue professionals from across Air Combat Command who practiced together in Exercise Atlantic Rescue Oct. 30 through Nov. 2 here and at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. 

The exercise brought together more than 300 military members in various roles and from different bases all focused on one thing: finding an isolated Airman or Soldier and bringing him home safe and sound. 

"If a Soldier or aircrew member is in a bad situation, he can know that we are going to use whatever force it takes to rescue him," said Brig. Gen. Douglas L. Raaberg, the director of air and space operations for Air Combat Command at Langley AFB, Va. "We have an ethical and moral responsibility to rescue anyone who may be down or isolated in hostile territory." 

Combat search and rescue, or CSAR,  had been with ACC for years before it was transferred over to Air Force Special Operations Command in 2001, the general said. The Air Force chief of staff reorganized CSAR as a theater capability, and it was shifted back to ACC in April. Atlantic Rescue is the first exercise testing rescue operations for the command using the full array of assets that would be used in saving isolated individuals. 

To make the exercise successful, it took the efforts of pilots, pararescuemen, planners and survival, evasion, resistance and escape Airmen from Moody AFB, Ga., Langley AFB, Va., Robins AFB, Ga., Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., and Shaw AFB, S.C. Aircraft participating in Atlantic Rescue are A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, C-130 Hercules, HH-60 Pave Hawks and E-8 Joint Stars. 

During the exercise, pilots and aircrew members worked with PJs and SERE members to learn the five phases of evasion, which includes immediate actions, initial movements, hole up, evasion movements and recovery. 

"This exercise gives me more confidence knowing that if things go wrong in combat, (rescue people) will be there," said 1st Lt. Hans Buckwalter, an F-15E Strike Eagle pilot from Seymour Johnson AFB. 

During Atlantic Rescue, Lieutenant Buckwalter role-played an isolated individual who was shot down over hostile territory. He used his SERE skills to be rescued in a nighttime extraction by pararescuemen in an HH-60 and then flown to a C-130. Every movement he made was under the watchful eye of a SERE Airman. 

"We are here to help (isolated individuals) work through problems to get to where they need to be, but we let them go through all the evasion steps," said Tech. Sgt. Jesse Arnold, a SERE specialist from Langley AFB. 

"I now know what a downed pilot feels," said 1st Lt. Charles Loiacono, an airbound manager for E-8 Joint Stars at Robins AFB. He role-played an isolated Airman who needed to be rescued out of the bay off the MacDill AFB marina near Tampa. "I'm normally the guy in the air the isolated individual is talking to. I now understand the stress and anxiety a downed pilot is going through." 

Colonel Fred Guendel, the exercise director from Langley AFB, made sure Atlantic Rescue was realistic and brought together all the proper forces. 

"Air Force combat search and rescue forces have performed 290 missions and rescued more than 620 personnel from all services and numerous coalition forces since the beginning of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom," Colonel Guendel said . "What PJs do is incredible. It doesn't matter who or where the person is, no one is left behind. It takes the whole team of ACC weapon systems to do the job. 

"The combined air operations center puts together a CSAR task force composed of JStars as the communications link," he said.  "HH-60s go in with PJs to rescue the person with the air support of A-10s and HC-130s, and if need be, F-16s. Atlantic Rescue gives ACC the tools it needs to prepare CSAR forces to accomplish their mission in any scenario or threat environment." 

"All the things we do in this exercise, we can do it for 100 people or for just one person," said Senior Master Sgt. Mark Budny, the 347th OSS weapons and tactics superintendent at Moody AFB who has been a pararescueman for 24 years. "No matter where you are, you are coming home tonight."