U.S. Air Force Airmen recently rescued a five-person Navy crew following what officials described as an “aircraft mishap.”
The incident occurred Aug. 10 and involved the deployment of two HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters to rescue five Navy personnel near Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., according to a release issued Aug. 14.
The deployment involved airmen from the 355th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (AMXS), assigned to the 355th Wing but geographically located at Nellis Air Force Base, and the 88th Test and Evaluation Squadron (88 TES).
Officials said that on Aug. 10, the 88 TES received initial notification from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at approximately 11:30 a.m. local time regarding a Navy MH-60S Seahawk “hard landing in mountainous terrain during a high-altitude training flight.”
The squadron immediately initiated a recall and coordinated with the mishap unit, and tasked the 355 AMXS with generating the aircraft.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Lucas Seney, a 355 AMXS aerospace propulsion craftsman, discussed the immediate shift in tempo in a statement.
“When production gave us the word for a real-world mission, I gathered the Airmen I had on the line and started directing traffic,” Seney said. “The crew worked well together, and I was proud to see just how efficiently everyone was able to get the job done.”
The aircrews reportedly departed Nellis AFB at 1 p.m. Roughly two hours later, rescue crews established two-way radio contact and visually identified the survivors.
Capt. John Howe, 88th TES combat rescue officer, led the pararescue effort deployed to the landing zone. After assessing the scene and condition of the survivors, it was determined that nobody was injured.
‘On-The-Spot Troubleshooting’
Officials said the rapid generation required “on-the-spot troubleshooting” to ensure a timely departure.
Staff Sgt. Cody Adams, a 355 AMXS avionics craftsman, reportedly helped resolve a critical circuit breaker issue that threatened to ground one of the aircraft with no spares available.
“We diagnosed the master caution warning press-to-reset button as what was causing the circuit breaker to pop and provided aircrew with a workaround to keep the system operational and allow on-time takeoff,” Adams said.
The 355 AMXS prepared and generated the two HH-60Ws in less than 30 minutes, officials noted, despite that being a scheduled training day.
The successful response was credited to the strong, pre-existing relationship between the maintenance and operations units.
“There’s an immense amount of trust, and that was evident,” said Lt. Col. Joshua Bedel, 355 AMXS commander. “You can tell there’s a deep respect for each other when it comes to getting that aircraft off the ground.”
Lt. Col. Kenneth “Buddy” Wilkins, 88 TES commander and flight lead for the rescue, said the training history between the units was imperative in alleviating what could have been a hazardous situation.
“What’s really nice about our organization, especially our relationship with the 355 AMXS, is that we’ve exercised this a number of times,” Wilkins said. “This mission was a really good example of us taking the lessons learned from those previous events and executing as quickly and efficiently as possible.
“Within 5 minutes, I knew we had tails. Within 30 minutes, they were ready for us to go out.”
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