10 septembre 2020 | Local, Aérospatial
From air and ground crews involved in endless operations and maintenance of search and rescue (SAR) aircraft, to the SAR technicians who often imperil their own lives to save others, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) SAR is an astoundingly complex and dedicated machine, executing its daily mission with such quiet professionalism that these heroes walk amongst us largely unnoticed and uncelebrated.
Yet the typical SAR mission that we have grown familiar with through the occasional news clip is a far cry from the reality facing those personnel in the SAR community.
“SAR is an incredibly multifaceted activity involving numerous federal, provincial/territorial, municipal and volunteer agencies,” noted Maj Kevin Grieve. “The public thinks only of yellow helicopters and orange jump suits but there's so much more to it than this.”
As a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) for more than 30 years, he should know. The former bush-pilot turned SAR expert flew dozens of SAR missions out of 8 Wing Trenton, Ont., flying his CC-130 Hercules into some of the most remote regions throughout Canada searching for those in distress. At one stage in his career, Grieve left the skies behind for a ground job as a Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC) co-ordinator, monitoring and responding to distress signals as they came into the centre.
The rate of those distress calls boggles the mind. Each year, the three JRCCs log almost 10,000 cases.
But these statistics only begin to tell the exceedingly complicated narrative behind SAR in this country. Although no set of statistics can ever reveal SAR's full story, this small community is one of the busiest and most operational groups in the CAF today.
“The nature of the search determines who has the lead in a SAR mission,” said Grieve. “The Government of Canada has mandated the responsibility for the search for missing aircraft in Canada to be that of the CAF with maritime SAR the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG).”
To simplify the process, the CAF has partnered with the CCG to stand up three Joint Rescue Coordination Centres (JRCC) which are responsible for the coordination of aeronautical and maritime SAR.
“Generally, other SAR within Canada that do not fall into either of these two categories will fall under the local police force of jurisdiction (i.e., RCMP or a municipal police force),” Grieve explained. “For example, if an airplane goes missing the CAF have responsibility for its SAR and it will be co-ordinated by the appropriate JRCC. If a fishing vessel puts out a mayday call, the CCG are responsible for its SAR and it will be co-ordinated by the appropriate JRCC which can involve military or civilian aircraft as well as CCG and/or civilian vessels in the area.”
To illustrate a local police force jurisdiction in a SAR mission: if a camper goes missing in rural Ontario, and the missing person is reported to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), the OPP will have the search lead and review their own assets first to conduct the search. If the OPP determine they do not have the capability to continue the search, they can request the assistance of the CAF through the JRCC.
The process then becomes multilayered.
“With all the players that can be involved in a search, one can begin to appreciate how each SAR mission is different and how numerous agencies and volunteers work together,” said Grieve. “Really, it's about picking the right tool as a search evolves, but there has to be great co-operation and communication between all partners in the military and civilian SAR worlds. We can't do this alone.”
CASARA is a national volunteer organization funded by the Department of National Defence to assist the RCAF in its SAR mandate. There are 2,800 volunteer CASARA members from coast to coast, and they cover all 10 provinces and three territories. There are 104 zones responsible for providing search and rescue assistance.
“CASARA is vital to the overall SAR mission,” Grieve stated. “They extend our eyes and ears into the furthest reaches across the country, actively assisting us to help those people in danger. CASARA contributions are truly immeasurable and they are not to be underestimated in their skills and abilities.”
CASARA's membership boasts pilots, navigators, spotters, search coordinators, electronic search specialists, radio operators and administration staff. They also have trained spotters who deploy on military aircraft, literally looking out of an aircraft window acting as a force multiplier.
Today, the military manages thousands of distress calls each year through the JRCC that co-ordinate RCAF and CCG responses. CAF personnel requested to physically assist local police forces of jurisdiction in searches for missing people are co-ordinated through the Canadian Joint Operations Command.
As distress calls come in from across Canada's landmass, lakes, river systems and coastal regions, those duty personnel who receive the calls are peppered across the country in Halifax, Trenton, and Comox. And while it seems at first glance that the almost 10,000 distress calls the JRCCs receive every year is beyond the CAF's capabilities, nothing is further from the truth.
But no SAR mission is conducted in isolation either. And although the CAF deals with a relentless stream of distress calls and missions each day, these activities are typically conducted in co-operation with other SAR community actors.
Theirs is a unique calling — “so that others might live” — setting this group of professionals in a league of their own.
As SAR is practised across Canada today by the CAF, three broad categories are referred to which details the type of CAF SAR response to a distress:
Although the categories are broadly defined encompassing thousands of scenarios, the lead agency is based on the nature of the distress. For example, even though the CCG leads the maritime SAR mandate, they may call for an RCAF Cormorant helicopter to assist in a search for a missing boat off the coast of Nova Scotia since the CCG may not have the appropriate assets in-tow at the time of the distress. Likewise, a missing boater off Toronto's waterfront would likely see the deployment of the Toronto Police Marine Unit since this municipal authority has the appropriate tools to quickly respond to the incident.
Aeronautical search and rescue wasn't a responsibility the Canadian government had considered prior to 1944. The commercial airline industry was in its infancy and although Canada and her allies were embroiled in a death struggle against the Axis powers, the end was near and international post-war planning took shape. An international aviation conference met that year to consider international participation in an agreement binding nations together to search for downed aircraft, irrespective of the plane's country of origin. Canadian delegates attended and signed the International Civil Aviation Organization covenant on behalf of the people of Canada. The government deferred to the RCAF as lead search agency given its massive fleet of aircraft as it emerged from the Second World War.
At the time, the RCAF SAR function only included the “search” mandate. The “rescue” function wasn't part of the RCAF mission although this gradually evolved over time to include the RCMP, provincial and municipal police forces as well as civilian volunteer agencies such as CASARA (Civil Air Search and Rescue Association). This explains the multifaceted agency approach to SAR today.
https://www.skiesmag.com/press-releases/the-military-sar-machine-complex-and-dedicated
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LEE BERTHIAUME, OTTAWA, THE CANADIAN PRESS Canada is poised to contribute tens of millions of dollars toward further development of the F-35 stealth fighter even as the federal government wrestles with whether to buy the plane or not. In an interview with The Canadian Press, the Department of National Defence's head of military procurement says there are no plans for Canada to quit as one of nine partner countries in the F-35 stealth fighter program until after the Trudeau government completes the competition to determine which fighter jet will replace Canada's aging fleet of CF-18s. “We're committed to staying there (in the program) until we understand where the competition will bring us,” said Patrick Finn, assistant deputy minister of material at National Defence. The competition is expected to be launched this spring. The F-35 is one of four planes currently slated to participate in the $19-billion competition, which will result in the purchase of 88 new fighter aircraft to serve as the air force's backbone for the coming decades. The Trudeau Liberals campaigned on a promise not to buy the F-35s in 2015, but have since backed away from that pledge. The Harper Conservatives first announced plans to buy 65 F-35s in 2010, but ran into controversy over cost. Staying on as a partner in the F-35 program comes with advantages, Finn says, including the ability for Canadian companies to compete for billions of dollars in contracts associated with building and maintaining the stealth fighter. Partners are also allowed to buy the F-35 at a lower price than non-partners, who must pay a variety of fees and other costs to purchase the plane. “We want to keep the F-35 as an option, as a contender in the competition,” Finn said. “We want to also make sure that while that's unfolding, that Canadian industry that have competitively won contracts get to continue to do that.” The Defence Department says Canadian companies have won more than $1.25-billion in F-35-related contracts over the years. Yet there are also costs to being a partner; Canada has so far invested more than $500-million into the program over the past 20 years, including $54-million last year. Its next annual payment is due this spring and there will likely be more as the competition isn't scheduled to select a winner until 2021 or 2022. The first new aircraft is expected in 2025 and the last in 2031. There are some technical issues that government officials are working through that could impact how it runs the competition to replace the CF-18s. One of those is how to ensure the various bids are all measured equally. In addition to Lockheed Martin's F-35, bids are expected from Boeing's Super Hornet, Eurofighter's Typhoon and Saab's Gripen. All four companies recently provided feedback on a draft process that the government has drawn up to run the competition, and another round of consultations is scheduled for mid-February. A big question facing Lockheed is how it can meet Ottawa's usual requirement that companies who are awarded large military contracts invest back into Canada on a dollar-for-dollar basis. The F-35 partnership agreement that Canada signed with the other countries bars such promised investments and instead stipulates that companies must compete for the work. Finn said all four jet companies have unique challenges and circumstances, and that officials in charge of the competition could inject some flexibility into how the requirement is handled. “There is absolutely flexibility and I would say my colleagues in (the federal industry department) demonstrate that on a weekly, monthly basis,” he said. “They would be the first to say, and they're very good at saying, is: ‘Well listen, the first intent is to get the right military capability. We want to have the offsets as well, and with a given market segment, what it is that we do and how do we do it.“' https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-to-keep-paying-for-f-35-development-as-fighter-jet-competition
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