A Time for Patriots (7 page)

“The storm system has blown through and clear skies with gusty winds are expected in the recovery area,” Spara went on. “Several airliners have picked up the ELT, and air traffic control actually put together a pretty good triangulation based on signal fade. The plan is to launch the 182 and begin a search grid at the approximate location given by the airliner. Unfortunately, the ELT is an old-style transmitter and isn't picked up by satellite or doesn't transmit its position, so we do a search the old-fashioned way. General McLanahan will be mission pilot, with de Carteret as observer and Slotnik as scanner.

“Because we got an ELT signal and we might have a mostly intact plane with survivors, I'm going to deploy a Hasty team immediately,” Spara went on. “Bellville will be the ground-team leader, with Fitzgerald as deputy team leader, driver, and comm, McLanahan as DF, and Spivey and Markham as medics. Repeater setup will be Romeo-17.” Everyone wrote that designation on their briefing cards. The repeater network—a series of FM radio towers on several mountain peaks throughout remote areas of Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah—would allow the incident commander to communicate with air and ground units simultaneously, even if in a remote area or not in line of sight. “Be sure to carry medical equipment and supplies for three victims.

“Unfortunately the GA-8 ARCHER is undergoing its one-hundred-hour inspection, so it's not available until Tuesday, but I'm hoping to find this objective before then.” ARCHER, which stood for airborne real-time cueing hyperspectral reconnaissance, was the most sophisticated nonmilitary airborne ground sensor in the world, capable of detecting fifty different wavelengths of electromagnetic energy in a single pass. It could detect tiny pieces of metal, disturbed earth, or even spilled fuel. ARCHER could not be operated at night and had difficulties seeing through dense trees or deep snow, but in the deserts of the western United States, it was an ideal sensor to help locate downed planes. Because of its capabilities, ARCHER, mounted aboard an Australian-made Gippsland GA-8 Airvan single-engine plane, was borrowed quite often by other CAP wings; it flew so often that it underwent a hundred-hour inspection about once every three months.

“Our Cessna 206 is on its way back from Las Vegas,” Spara went on, “and it should be available tomorrow if necessary. Elko and Reno squadrons are issuing alert notifications but I haven't heard if they have backup planes available yet, so for right now, we're it. Cell-phone signal forensics hasn't picked up anything yet.” The Civil Air Patrol had the capability to triangulate a person's cell-phone signals to help locate that person, even if the phone wasn't in use—depending on the number of cell towers activated, the position could be determined within a few miles. “Questions?” He waited a few moments, then said, “Conduct your task-force and team briefings, then head on out. Good luck, good hunting.”

The air and ground teams got together for a joint briefing. “Based on approximate positions of aircraft flying overhead and relayed to us from air traffic control, the IC picked grid SFO 448 to search,” Bellville began, pointing to a topographic chart that had been overlaid with hundreds of numbered rectangles. “I suggest we start on the southwest corner of the grid. We'll plan on driving west on the interstate to Exit 234, north on Grayson Highway, north on Andorsen Road, and go off-road at Andorsen ranch. Hopefully the 182 will have spotted the objective by the time we get there. Fid?”

“The Andorsen family has already given us permission to access their land at any time,” Michael Fitzgerald, the deputy team leader but a much more experienced Nevada high-desert outdoorsman, said. Fitzgerald, a Nevada Department of Wildlife field agent and firefighter, was a tall, imposing guy, with long hair and whiskers, definitely not military-looking—and he delighted in that. “I have my charts marked pretty well with gate locations. We've lucked out because the grid is relatively flat, with the east face of Adam Peak in the northwest corner the only high terrain to worry about. I just hope the ground isn't too soggy.”

Patrick made some notes and checked his sectional chart, which had been marked with the same grid lines as on the topographic briefing chart, then nodded. “Sounds good, Fid,” he said. “We'll enter the grid on the southwest and try to steer to the ELT—if we're lucky, it'll still be emitting. If not, we'll contour-search Adam Peak, then do a parallel search course in the grid, half-mile tracks, at one thousand feet AGL. Based on sun angles, I'll do a north-south track and hope we can pick up some good contrasting shadows. I know our target is a Cessna 182—any details about the three passengers?”

“The fixed base operator at Elko said it was two adults and one young boy on board that plane,” Bellville said. Patrick couldn't help but look over at his own son, and Brad looked back at him with sorrow on his face. They had flown together for many years—Patrick was a flight instructor, but in these tough economic times, Brad was usually his only student—but the thought of losing Brad in a plane crash was almost too awful to think about.

“If the ELT is still on,” Patrick said, swallowing hard and shaking off the thought of Brad being in that situation, “they may have survived the crash, and they may be trying to signal us. I feel good about this one, gang.”

“Same here, sir,” Bellville said. He and Patrick exchanged more information, double-checking radio repeater channels and charts so they could communicate and have common references in case anything was spotted, then shook hands. “Good luck, sir.”

“Same to you, Dave,” Patrick said, and the air and ground teams broke up to do their own team briefings.

“A few more thoughts, and then we'll mount up,” Fitzgerald said to the ground-team members. “Looking at the objective area, we might be able to stay on the wash, but the thunderstorms that moved through the area might make it impassable. Hopefully the ground will have had a chance to dry out by the time we get there. It's fairly flat, but we might have a few deep gullies to traverse. In any case, our job is to move fast to help any survivors. We'll try to drive in as far as we can, but be prepared to do some quick hiking.”

Bellville referenced a data card given to him by Spara. “We're on the lookout for a Cessna 182, the same type of plane as Three-Double-Echo, which I know you've all flown on, white with blue stripes,” he went on. “Three souls on board. The flight originated from Elko en route to Carson City, so it might have lots of fuel still in its tanks, so be careful of spilled fuel and fire.”

Bellville paused, then looked at Spivey and Markham, the two youngest members of the ground team—Spivey was seventeen and a bit younger than Brad, and Markham was fifteen. “Guys, let me and Fid approach the scene first, okay? I know you guys have been on actual missions, but you've never seen accident victims before, right?” Both cadets shook their heads, their eyes wide. “I know you guys are fully qualified in emergency services, first aid, and field operations, but encountering victims of a plane crash is a whole 'nuther world. You've got to ready yourself for some pretty awful sights. I'm not going to push you away from the scene or keep you from doing your assignments, but I'm not going to shove that horror on you either. Let us seniors check out the scene first, okay?” Both of the younger cadets nodded silently; Brad did not. “Good. Get your packs ready for inspection outside the van and let's move out.”

Brad wished he was old enough to fly as an observer or scanner, but as they prepared for inspection, he was starting to get revved up to go out and find these victims. Yes, the air-search guys got all the glory, but the ground teams were the ones to actually make contact and help the victims.

Each team member had a twenty-pound backpack on a support frame called a Seventy-Two Hour pack with a carefully prepared list of items for a three-night encampment, the longest authorized for CAP cadets, including sleeping bags and pads, another set of BDUs, Meals Ready to Eat kits for five meals, and other standard personal camping items. A two-gallon water bladder was attached to the back of each backpack, with a tube attached to the front of the uniform for drinking. They also carried a fanny pack with a personal first-aid kit and other essential items that they could access without having to dig through a backpack, such as gloves, goggles, a compass, maps, a headlamp, sunscreen, and other items. After checking their gear, they inventoried the other items they would take along in the van, including tents, packs of bottled water, more MREs, and cooking equipment. The medical team inventoried their kits and equipment, including splints, burn-treatment kits, stretchers, and bandages, and the senior members checked their radios, charts, and portable GPS receivers and spare batteries.

Brad was in charge of the DF, or direction-finding equipment, and he had to show Bellville that it was working properly. The DF, called an L-Per, was a VHF and UHF radio receiver with an oblong directional antenna mounted on a six-foot-high mast, which was attached to a vehicle or could be carried on a special harness if they had to go in on foot. The receiver would pick up the electronic beacon from a downed aircraft and, by monitoring the signal strength as the antenna was turned, point the way to the beacon. The device was powered by two nine-volt batteries, and Brad made sure he had plenty of fresh spares—there wasn't anything worse than to lead a team miles and miles into the desert and run out of juice before reaching the objective.

Once Bellville had inspected everyone's gear, it was all loaded into the back of the ten-passenger blue-and-white four-wheel-drive van, and the team piled in. The van had a special FM radio operating on the Civil Air Patrol repeater network that would tie in all of the teams on that channel, including, air, ground, and base units, along with a cellular amplifier that could pull in distant cellular signals to allow cell phones to be used farther from civilization.

The ground mission was under way.

At the same time Patrick was at the hangar entrance with the squadron's blue-and-white Cessna 182R and the other members of his flight crew, Leo Slotnick and John de Carteret. Leo was in his midthirties, a former U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tanker pilot and currently a Nevada Highway Patrol sergeant and pilot from Battle Mountain, who had only been a member of the Battle Mountain squadron for five months. John de Carteret was just the opposite: he was in his early sixties, a retired captain in the U.S. Coast Guard, and was the co-owner of a gas station and convenience store in town just off the interstate with his wife, Janet, also retired Coast Guard and a CAP volunteer. He had been in the Civil Air Patrol since he first came to Battle Mountain eleven years earlier and was qualified in numerous emergency-services specialties, both ground and flying. Even though he was a pilot, he preferred to be a mission observer and act as copilot and mission commander. Slotnick could qualify for mission pilot after flying a few more actual or exercise sorties as a mission scanner and taking another flight check.

Rob Spara came over with several forms. “Flight release and weight and balance,” he said. To the entire crew he asked, “How's everyone feeling today? No one popping open any brewskis early on a hot Saturday afternoon?”

“A couple hours later and I might have,” Leo admitted.

“No late nights last night, no allergy medications?”

“A late night for me is eight
P.M
., Rob,” John said.

“I'm right with you, John,” Spara said. The “IMSAFE” check, which stood for illness, medications, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and eating/hydration, was a required briefing element to be sure each crewmember was fit to fly. Since none of them was on alert and they all led normal lives, being suddenly thrust into a flying assignment meant that the aircraft commander and flight-release officer had to be sure everyone was ready to fly. “How about you, General?”

“I feel good, no meds, no alcohol, and things are so slow here on the base I can't be stressed,” Patrick said.

“Good.” Spara tapped some instructions into a BlackBerry, waited a few moments; then: “You're released. Good luck.” He wrote their release number on the flight-release form. “I'll see you on the radio.”

Patrick opened up the airplane maintenance logs. “Okay, last crew reports they filled the plane to the tabs, so we have plenty of gas. Open discrepancies . . . loose copilot's armrest . . . and left rearmost window is crazed. Let me know if you think it's too bad to look out of, Leo.”

“Will do, sir.”

“No other glitches.” Patrick filled out log sheet from data on the flight-release form, closed it, then referred to a mission briefing card he had filled out after getting a mission briefing from the operations and planning officers. “Okay, guys, we'll head on out directly to the southwest corner of grid SFO 448, and hopefully we'll get a few ELT bearings. Altitude will be one thousand feet AGL, which will be around five thousand five hundred feet MSL in that area. Thirty minutes out and thirty back will give us three hours on station with an hour fuel reserve—hopefully we won't need that long. We might have enough daylight when we get back to return, refuel, and relaunch if necessary. With the front blowing through, we might get some turbulence, so let me know if anyone feels queasy. Flat terrain except for Adam Peak, good visibility, and a half-mile track separation gives us a probability of detection of eighty-five percent, so let's get this one. Questions?” Leo and John shook their heads. “Okay. I'll do an airplane preflight. You guys preflight the radios, camera, and DF, copy the airplane hours into the logbook and the mission forms, and get a good radio check with the IC and ground team.”

Patrick put on a pair of Nomex fireproof gloves and began to work on preflighting the four-seat Cessna, working with a plastic-laminated checklist. John met up with him a few minutes later. “Comm is good,” he said, “and the DF self-tests okay.”