People living in the Lethbridge area may see more of a military presence this week as the Royal Canadian Air Force flies into the city.
17 Wing Winnipeg’s 435 “Chinthe” Transport and Rescue Squadron is conducting its annual search and rescue training in the Lethbridge area until Friday.
About 70 personnel from the Squadron came to participate.
Two CC-130 Hercules aircrafts and other specialized equipment have been sent for the training called CHINTHEX.
“Based out of Lethbridge, we would do exercises just as we would in a search. So we would do different patterns, we would look for a downed aircraft or people missing,” Dennis Scharf, CHINTHEX’s detachment commander, said. “So we have numerous scenarios we have in place…we are gauging performances of our crews to see how well they can cope with that.”
Lethbridge provides the squadron with unique challenges like different landscapes and unpredictable weather.
“We get to see a variety of different changes in weather conditions we aren’t used to, we get in to the mountains, we get to do the valley flying, we get to experience weather phenomena in the mountains and how to cope with that,” Scharf said.
The training involves a lot of mock casualties on the ground. Crews are able to fly over the targeted area and decide if there is an actual distress call before landing and performing medical procedures that would be used in real-life situations.
The grueling four-day training session also includes members of the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association.
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