Caribous display rescue capacity

Aircrew prepare to drop markers before deploying a dummy Air/Sea Rescue Survival Kit off the Townsville coast. Photos by CPL Craig Sharp

Sergeant Shane Grist checks the kit ahead of the training exercise.

By CPL Belinda Mepham

COAST Guard and Water Police personnel from Townsville have received a bird’s eye view of No. 38 Squadron’s Detachment B search and survivor assistance platform.

The waters near Townsville often catch ocean-going vessels unaware and rescues have ranged from vessels caught in cyclones to small boats being run over by giant freighters in the shipping channel.

Flight Lieutenant Marty Crann, Deputy Detachment Commander 38SQN Det B, said that the Caribous regularly supported the Combat Survival Training School at RAAF Base Townsville.

“We carry out practice Air/Sea Rescue Survival Kit (ASRK) drops to them, which is just a form of survival equipment we pitch out for maritime rescue,” FLTLT Crann said. “On the most recent trip, we called the Coast Guard and the Water Police to come along and have a look just so we could detail for them what we can and can’t do with the Caribou to assist them.”
The briefing included information on the range of the aircraft, what can be dropped, and the ability to detect people in the water.

“We can electronically home in on them, or we just have to use eyeball. Also we informed them about the capability we have for flying a search pattern, then showed them the actual physical items that we can drop, what an ASRK looks like and what its capabilities are,” FLTLT Crann said.

An ASRK is two, two-man life rafts and three supply bundles joined together with 150m of rope.

“The function of it is if we have a survivor in the water or a group of survivors, we fly along and set up a drop pattern for the two rafts to drift around the survivors and pull themselves into the raft.”

“So we’ll go and dispatch one of those and we’ll show the guys what’s in it and what its capabilities are and what rescue equipment is in the bundle.”

The Caribous have been used before in this manner but not in the Townsville region.

FLTLT Crann said he had have been involved in a few searches in New Guinea.

“We were called up for a beacon search recently, so occasionally we get called upon to do it. It’s a requirement that we stay current and capable as search and survivor assistance,” he said.

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