Use of CAP for missing person searches

[RiverAux]

Okay, CAP News Online has 3 success stories about CAP in "non-traditional" searches, all of which happened about the same time.  Use these as examples when talking to local government:

OR Wing aircrew finds car that went off the road

CO Wing aircrew finds lost family who used a signal mirror to get their attention.

NC Wing aircrew sees the dog that was with a missing toddler, leading to his rescue

Fixed URL tags. -TA

[JRESO]

What are the current "chain of events" that must take place for missing person searches involving CAP? There is a local civilian group who does missing person searches and after speaking with their coordinator, I mentioned that I was with CAP. She apparently has had some dealings with CAP in the past because she mentioned that she no longer calls this "contact" person because there were too many hoops to jump through in order for them (CAP) to show up when she needed them. She could not recall the person's name or contact number. I would like to regain her confidence and possibly open the door to this opportunity once again. Any ideas how to speed things up? Thank you in advance!

[Eclipse]

Requesting agency calls the NOCAFRCC.

NOCAFRCC approves or denies support.

NOCAFRCC then contacts local IC on call and hands over mission.

Not very complicated.

What is more complicated is making the contacts BEFORE the problem so that people know to call the NOCAFRCC.

Edit: accurate info

[isuhawkeye]

My experience with the NOC indicates that that they prefer the requesting agency contact AFRCC directly in conjunction with the state's MOU with AFRCC

[RiverAux]

The CAPabilities handbook for local officials says that SAR requests should go direct to AFRCC and that everything else goes to the NOC.

[Eclipse]

I'll buy that - it was the reference I was referring to.

Either way, the process is not complicated.

(can someone fix those tags above?)

[isuhawkeye]

I have found that at the moment of crisis the local law enforcement agency often finds themselves frustrated and insulted by the "20" questions the controllers put them through.  I often find it helpfull to walk them throught the process and explain the questions ahead of time. 

[smj58501]

What I am about to say applies to my experiences, and may not be a problem across the board. With that said, it would be interesting to know if others are running into this situation, and how you may have overcome it.

The real challenge I have observed is getting the local authorities to request our assistance in a timely manner, where we could make a difference. Too often the "we can handle 'er" attitude is prevalent. By the time the local authorities realize that they are in over their head and/ or they don't have the right resources (the right equipment and correctly trained people) and/or a little help from outside their jurisdiction may make a difference, CAP is most often in a position to be looking for a cold body vs. a warm one.

This not only applies to CAP, but other outside entities which could make a difference. Also, this is not a question of marketing (at least in our situation) our CAPabilites. This is happening.... we are offered up, and we do get called, but as stated it is too late. Still, when we do get called, the response is timely and relatively sustainable... not bad for unpaid volunteers. When the local sheriff (most often the search IC) is questioned why they didn't ask for CAP/ waited so long to do so, the answer is "we had a volunteer fire department who we called out... figured they could find them" or "I have a buddy with an airplane who said he would not charge us" or "the local ATV group wanted to get involved, and its hard to say no to the local boys".  Never mind the fact that in most instances none of the above are trained for SAR (hey, I don't try to go put large grass fires out either... I call for the Rural FD).

Reading between the lines, one can't help but wonder if the real issue is one of a local authority being afraid to ask for outside help because he is afraid to be perceived as weak if the search can't be managed with local resources. Once they get past this, it is often too late no matter what outside help can be brought in. Maybe this is an over-generalization, but I know this has happened locally too many times (once is too many if you ask the victim's family).

Part of it is not their fault... when the local authority (esp in a rural community... likely places for MP searches) finds themselves thrust into the IC role for a search, often times alot of undesired notoriety and hard questions from the media and local community (the same folks who elect them) comes with it. They find themselves on the defensive, pressured to show they are in control and managing the situation, and most definitely not in need of help from anyone outside their jurisdiction and/ or the law enforcement community. They are also not used to dealing with these types of distractions day to day.

Anyways, I agree the process to get us involved is not overly challenging. What is challenging is getting asked for when we could have the best chance to influence the situation in a positive manner. SAR is a team effort, and CAP is a vital part of that team. No one agency can do it all, but when many diverse resources are brought in, synergy in SAR can happen and more lives can be saved.

[SJFedor]

The key is, to prevent this GOB atmosphere and the "we can handle it" attitude is to make relations with them prior to the incident, not during. If they know who you are, what you can do, and how you can be a force multiplier w/o being a liability, they're going to be more likely to add you to their resource basket.

[smj58501]

Agreed. As stated, that has happened on multiple occasions. They know those things, but we will keep on plugging anyways til we achieve a breakthrough.

I do wonder if the media will start asking a new hard question next time... the "you could have had all these aircraft and trained volunteers assist you. Why didn't you ask for them?" question

[RiverAux]

Agreed on the above.

Big problem in relation to lost person searches is that they wait 2+ weeks to call CAP at which time it is basically a body recovery mission and AFRCC is not going to approve those. 
 
Hopefully, the local CAP folks will have built a relationship with the agency already so that they know what to expect when calling AFRCC. 

[_]

There are a couple things I've see that relates to this topic.  They all related to one missing person search this summer.  Some things may have been brought up before.

Make contact with civilian search teams in your area.  We got alerted to the search because I happened to have met the president of a local SAR team and when the call for people came he called me to see if CAP wanted to get involved.  The guy happened to have my phone number and knew I was with CAP because we had talked for a couple minutes when I did a SARTECH exam with him.  We've since then gotten more involved with the Maryland Search Team Task Force which is a loose association of the search teams in MD.  It's main benefit is that it allows the communication of lessons learned and it allows for the heads of the teams to get to know who everyone else is.  If there is a search and one team gets called up they'll call the other teams.

Don't call the NOC, call the AFRCC.  After hours the NOC number gets forwarded to a persons cell phone and they'll just tell you to call the AFRCC.

Know who can request CAP in your state.  Make sure the wing people know what the MOU the AFRCC has on record says.  They apparently had a copy that said only the State Police could request us.  In MD the State Police have overall authority but they delegate that authority to other agencies in certain areas of the state.  The guy in charge of the search was not state police which caused problems.

Since then we've worked out some of these problems.  Our wing GSAR officer has made contact, through the inland SAR course, with a couple of the search coordinators and the AFRCC guys.  They now know what we can do and how to get us. 

[JRESO]

They apparently had a copy that said only the State Police could request us.  In MD the State Police have overall authority but they delegate that authority to other agencies in certain areas of the state.  The guy in charge of the search was not state police which caused problems.

Since then we've worked out some of these problems.  Our wing GSAR officer has made contact, through the inland SAR course, with a couple of the search coordinators and the AFRCC guys.  They now know what we can do and how to get us. 

This sounds like what happens in our area. LE has authority to request CAP but that has not happened that I am aware of. Problem is, most LE run searches are "foul play" scenarios and they run these with resources from within their department. I'm not sure if they know about CAP and our abilities or not so, occasionally LE will bring a local dog team or a local civilian search team for manpower. Other searches include the Alzheimer's type or lost children searches which are given to the local civilian search team which are mostly, concerned and willing but not specifically trained in SAR. Their coordinator is not LE so not sure if AFRCC would activate us or not.

Good advice to make contacts ahead of time and work out all the kinks before the actual event. Can a lowly ES guy do this or should this be reserved for an Officer from group or wing?

[Short Field]

a force multiplier w/o being a liability

That is the real selling point - and once they understand it (and believe it), calling us early just makes them look smarter. 

[_]

They apparently had a copy that said only the State Police could request us.  In MD the State Police have overall authority but they delegate that authority to other agencies in certain areas of the state.  The guy in charge of the search was not state police which caused problems.

Since then we've worked out some of these problems.  Our wing GSAR officer has made contact, through the inland SAR course, with a couple of the search coordinators and the AFRCC guys.  They now know what we can do and how to get us. 

This sounds like what happens in our area. LE has authority to request CAP but that has not happened that I am aware of. Problem is, most LE run searches are "foul play" scenarios and they run these with resources from within their department. I'm not sure if they know about CAP and our abilities or not so, occasionally LE will bring a local dog team or a local civilian search team for manpower. Other searches include the Alzheimer's type or lost children searches which are given to the local civilian search team which are mostly, concerned and willing but not specifically trained in SAR. Their coordinator is not LE so not sure if AFRCC would activate us or not.

Good advice to make contacts ahead of time and work out all the kinks before the actual event. Can a lowly ES guy do this or should this be reserved for an Officer from group or wing?

If I remember correctly the SUI says the squadron ES officer should make contact with local officials and search teams.  I'd say to give your group or wing ES staff a heads up as to what you want to do.  It doesn't help to tell an outside person we want to help but then run into road blocks with the people who run things at wing.

I'm pretty lucky in that at our wing there is a dedicated ground sar officer under the wing ES officer.  The GSAR guy has aircrew experience but is a ground guy first.  He sees that we have a lot of people who train for this stuff but never get called.  I passed along some of the things I found out about, like the search team group and the search I got the heads up about and he ran with it.

I'm just a squadron guy but I was the conduit for nearly getting the wing involved with a search.  There is a lot you can do at the squadron level.  It may be a matter of finding the right person at group or wing to provide support at that level for what you're trying to do.  If you leave everything to group or wing it probably won't get done.  If you can come to them and say this is what I want to do, and you do the leg work, they may be able to back you up and give you any info you could use.

[JRESO]

If I remember correctly the SUI says the squadron ES officer should make contact with local officials and search teams.  I'd say to give your group or wing ES staff a heads up as to what you want to do.  It doesn't help to tell an outside person we want to help but then run into road blocks with the people who run things at wing.

I'm pretty lucky in that at our wing there is a dedicated ground sar officer under the wing ES officer.  The GSAR guy has aircrew experience but is a ground guy first.  He sees that we have a lot of people who train for this stuff but never get called.  I passed along some of the things I found out about, like the search team group and the search I got the heads up about and he ran with it.

I'm just a squadron guy but I was the conduit for nearly getting the wing involved with a search.  There is a lot you can do at the squadron level.  It may be a matter of finding the right person at group or wing to provide support at that level for what you're trying to do.  If you leave everything to group or wing it probably won't get done.  If you can come to them and say this is what I want to do, and you do the leg work, they may be able to back you up and give you any info you could use.
[/quote]
This is exactly what I would like to do, thing is we have no group ES Officer and just found out the Wing ES position will be or is vacant. I'm thinking of approaching our Group Commander and seeing if we can't put together some sort of plan to get the word out about CAP and our abilities.

[Tubacap]

This is a major set of missions for us in PAWG.  One that did not happen by accident.  It was through a lot of hard work by our Wing Operations staff that this MOU was signed (of which I was not one). 

http://www.pawingcap.com/docs/jointnotification.pdf