Welcome to Eagle Eye, our new column that will take a look at the lighter side of life and happenings in the Air Force and the wider ADF. We hope you enjoy what is designed to be an easy, breezy feature. And we hope you will contribute your amusing, lively and interesting anecdotes to ensure Eagle Eye occupies an eyrie in Air Force News for some time to come.

Having a bad day?

TSUNAMI relief efforts were temporarily disrupted in early January when a Boeing-737 hit a water buffalo shortly after touching down at Banda Aceh airport.

The aircraft’s left landing gear had collapsed in the collision, leaving it lopsided and stranded on the runway for about a day. Since Banda Aceh airport has only one runway, the accident prevented other fixed wing planes from landing, although helicopters were able to continue operating.

Crew members from USS Abraham Lincoln and local relief workers managed to repair the aircraft’s landing gear so it could be moved from the runway and aid flights could continue to land.
In an effort to prevent such an incident occurring again, Eagle Eye has taken the lead with a bid to have buffalo warning signs installed at the approaches to runways worldwide.

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Only trying to help

A TRAINEE medical assistant from Health Services Training Flight may have come close to failing to adequately reassure the casualty during a recent night training activity.

SGT Kevin Curtis takes up the story as medical assistants and nursing officers evacuate wounded from a blacked out building.

“The building had a long central corridor with double doors at the end, which the enterprising rescue team of medical assistants and nursing officers had lit by facing an ambulance into the door with its headlights on.

“With a warm and caring hand, an intrepid medical assistant guided a wounded member to the corridor and directed him to the ambulance by saying, ‘Go towards the light, there is help in the light’.”

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