Photo By Tech. Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal | U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael Garcia, 15th Operations Support Squadron survival,...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- Aircrew members in all branches of service are required to complete survival, evasion, resistance and escape (SERE) training to endure and survive in case their aircraft goes down. U.S. Air Force airmen operating in an aircrew role receive this training but the continued cultivation of skills learned is required throughout their career.
Eight C-17 Globemaster aircrew members, one KC-135 Stratotanker aircrew member and two flight surgeons attended a triennial course designed to refamiliarize and hone their SERE knowledge Oct. 6, beginning with the water survival course.
Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Ray and Tech. Sgt. Michael Garcia, 15th Operations Support Squadron SERE instructors, provided the instruction to strengthen these aircrew members water survival knowledge as part of a week long course.
"Today was the kick off," Garcia said. "Every 36 months aircrew members go through a refresher requirement to get trained on all water survival or code of conduct continuation training events that can include emergency parachute training, combat survival training, and conduct after capture."
The day of instruction began with classroom instruction followed by hands-on training at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam harbor where aircrew members were tasked with demonstrating proper procedures of using survival equipment in a water environment.
One task had aircrew members navigate their way out from under a parachute canopy.
"The canopy disentanglement is necessary when there is typically not a lot of wind and when the canopy comes down right on top of them and they have to separate from that canopy," Ray said. "We teach them the proper way of not overreacting and how to get out by using the simplest and most direct method."
Another portion of the training tested the participants in properly disconnecting themselves with a parachute harness while being dragged in the water.
"The parachutes get caught by wind as they're in the water and will potentially drag them so we have them go through the proper techniques on how to release from that canopy safely and then get into the one man life raft after that," Ray said. "So if there are high winds pulling them they have to release correctly from that."
Maintaining the knowledge of survival equipment and survival techniques over the water are important for aircrew members to retain.
"It's absolutely necessary for these individuals to accomplish this training every 36 months because it's a perishable skill," Garcia said. "They go through SERE training when they initially go through the pipeline training of their career field and if that was 13 years ago there's no way they are going to remember how to work all that survival equipment. There are hundreds of items that we expect these aircrew members to remember. It's very important to revisit this training and that can be the difference between life and death."
U.S. Air Force Maj. Jamielyn Thompson, 204th Airlift Squadron assistant director of operations and SERE refresher course student, explained why the training is so important for her.
"Obviously we would never want to have to ditch the aircraft but in the rare chance that we would, having this refresher training every three years helps familiarize us with our emergency equipment as well as how we would respond in any situation," Thompson said.
SERE refresher training is conducted once a month, twelve months a year, to ensure that all aircrew members are able to fulfill their triennial training requirements at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
| Date Taken: | 10.06.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 10.08.2014 15:45 |
| Story ID: | 144639 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 152 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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