Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/103039
Search and rescue S Photos: DND "To put it in perspective, I tell people we are responsible for search and rescue halfway to Europe," Laaouan adds. "Then it hits them: how do you rescue someone from just inside 30 west?" The solution? Aircraft with endurance and enduring partnerships, both domestic and international. The Canadian Forces are only responsible for aeronautical and maritime search and rescue, a fact not always understood since National Defence assumed responsibility for federal SAR 65 years ago; ground SAR is the responsibility of each province, which often rely on police agencies like the RCMP. Both, however, rely on each other and a myriad of private sector partners through well-established procedures and protocols. "We have to have the ability to reach out to every possible asset, to all vessels of interest, to all the resources that are out there," Laaouan says. As important as aircraft are to the JRCC, Gardam is quick to point out that maritime SAR often involves drawing on nearby government vessels and commercial and civilian ships to assist with everything from trauma injuries to engine failures to fires. That complex coordination extends well beyond the AOR of JRCC Halifax. Under international convention, every centre is accountable for all distress beacons it receives, regardless of where they originate. "If we are the first people to receive a distress beacon from the middle of the Gulf of Oman, we are responsible for that distress until we are able to confirm that someone else is dealing with it," Gardam explains. "Even in our own region, we cannot always do it by ourselves. So we rely on a lot of other agencies to help us and we do the same thing for them." To illustrate the point, Laaouan describes a recent distress call in Nunavut involving a father and son in a small open boat. The initial details confirmed only a small boat in distress. "We knew we could have sent a Herc, but it was a long distance and we knew there was a Cormorant (not one of ours) transiting the area to Iqaluit. And we knew that Transport Canada was doing some testing on NavCanada assets up there. So we used those two aircraft to locate and then pick them up. The boat had reached shore so, jurisdictionally, who is responsible? We will never ever fight to determine jurisdiction if someone is in distress. A spot beacon is a distress, so we'll respond and figure it out after. However, when the provinces know it is in their jurisdiction and they ask us for help, that's where the risk assessment comes into play." The tragic death in January of 14-year-old Burton Winters near his home in Makkovik, Labrador, reinforced the importance of well-understood protocols. The Canadian Forces faced a maelstrom of media criticism over its response, but Gardam says protocols were followed. He has since made a key change, however. "In the past when a call would come in for a potential ground SAR, if they didn't call back to say they needed something, even if we said call us back, then we'd say obviously there is no requirement and we'd close the file. Now we have a call back mechanism in place: we will proactively go back and ask, are you sure you don't need us? And we'll still continue to monitor until they close the www.vanguardcanada.com DECEMBER 2012/JANUARY 2013 31