DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. – Airmen from the 55th and 48th Rescue Squadrons strengthened their ability to execute personnel recovery operations in contested environments during Exercise Red Flag-Rescue 26-1 in San Diego, California, Feb. 13-20.
The exercise provided Davis-Monthan rescue Airmen the opportunity to train against realistic threats designed to replicate the complexities of modern combat search and rescue operations, with a significant focus on maritime and open-ocean recovery scenarios. 55th RQS HH-60W Jolly Green II aircrews and 48th RQS pararescuemen worked together to execute full-spectrum personnel recovery operations. These missions required close integration between air and ground rescue forces to locate, authenticate and recover isolated personnel (IP) while operating under simulated enemy threat conditions.
“During open ocean rescues, crews must calculate and evaluate various environmental and threat factors into their decision making,” said Senior Airman Brandon Barrera, 55th RQS special mission aviator. “One of the first challenges is locating the isolated personnel. It is quite difficult to spot the head of a submerged person when waves are bopping them up and down and potentially concealing them if the waves are tall enough. It might take longer to narrow down the specific area where the IPs are if you can’t talk to them directly. Once the IP is located, there are still many questions to think about: are they injured, wave direction, wave height, wind direction. All this proves to be a very dynamic and challenging environment, magnified even more if this scenario is taking place at nighttime.” From a rescue perspective, recovering isolated personnel in open water requires refining a blend of advanced watermanship, medical expertise, and operational precision in one of the most unforgiving environments on earth. These scenarios test every element of a pararescueman's skillset at once: physical endurance, water confidence, medical proficiency and decision making under pressure. While the environment may be different from other training evolutions, their mindset remains consistent: adapt to the conditions, execute with precision, and bring our people home.
“We are trained to operate in every environment on the planet and while the terrain and variables change, the end state never does: locate, assess, stabilize, and recover isolated personnel,” said a 48th RQS pararescueman. “Open water simply introduces a different set of complexities. The ocean is constantly moving, visibility can be limited, weather shifts quickly and there is very little margin for error, so the training becomes highly technical and demands complete attention to detail. Timing with aircraft, hoist precision, swimmer approaches, patient packaging, and environmental management all have to align perfectly.”
As rescue scenarios progressed they often shifted into sustainment operations. That included ensuring survivors had adequate food and potable water, carefully rationing supplies, preventing further fluid loss and managing hypothermia in windy and wet conditions. Pararescuemen stabilized and cared for patients on unstable, moving platforms while maintaining coordination with air and maritime assets.
“Exercises like Red Flag-Rescue prepare pararescuemen both mentally and physically by building stress tolerance through repetition in realistic, demanding conditions,” the PJ said. “At the end of the day, performance under pressure comes down to familiarity. A provider seeing a critically injured patient for the first time will not respond the same way as someone who has thousands of repetitions in chaotic environments. Physically, we’re operating under fatigue, environmental stress, and heavy equipment loads. Mentally, we’re making decisions with incomplete information. By repeatedly training in those conditions, we reduce hesitation, increase confidence and ensure that when the real-world call comes, our response is calm, methodical and focused on bringing that person home.” The scale and complexity of Red Flag-Rescue allowed both aircrew and pararescue forces to employ their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in a fully integrated environment.
“Being able to employ your own TTPs in a large exercise with other players is some of the best practice you can get just short of doing it in a real combat environment,” said Barrera. “You can read about a technique multiple times, but real-world practice is much more valuable. Being able to set up a complex scenario and testing your decision making in the moment builds confidence and experience that you can carry over into the real thing. This exercise builds upon the current readiness we already possess and helps home in on our skills and identify things we are currently doing well and things we can still work on to prepare ourselves for the future.” Exercises like Red Flag-Rescue ensure Davis-Monthan rescue Airmen remain prepared to meet evolving threats, demonstrating their commitment to the mission and their ability to bring isolated personnel home under any conditions.
“In the rescue community there is a constant demand to stay current across a wide range of skills and opportunities for realistic, full mission repetitions are invaluable,” the pararescueman said. “These scenarios build confidence not just in our individual abilities, but in our execution as a team when it truly matters. It also gives us the chance to integrate with a wide variety of assets and partner units, which is critical because no rescue mission happens in isolation. Seeing how aircrews, intelligence professionals, maintenance teams, and other joint or coalition entities synchronize their efforts reinforces how much coordination goes into a single successful recovery. For me, it’s a reminder that we’re part of something bigger than just our own team, and that effective rescue is built on trust, repetition, and seamless teamwork across the entire force.”