Aircrew and Ground Team Debriefing Responsibility

[Ranger75]

Reviewing instruction I received in ICS 300/400 and my past experience participating in actual SAR missions in which CAP served as the lead agency has raised a question in my mind.  Where should responsibility reside for the conduct of debriefings of aircrew and ground teams following the completion of an assigned task?  Past participation in SARs placed the onus upon the AOBD and GOBD, who were then responsible for providing relevant information to the IC and PSC. [/b]  Formal instruction during the ICS 300 and 400 courses provided that debriefings should fall to the PSC to facilitate his modifying the current Incident Action Plan (IAP) and preparing the draft for the next operational period.  I relaize that that ICS permits an IC flexibility to staff the ICP and assign staff responsibilities appropriate to the unique circumstances of the incident at hand, but wanted to hear from others where they felt this responsibility should rest most commonly.   

[Al Sayre]

At our last SAR-EX, we had two assistant AOBD's(both fully qualified) who were assigned to the PSC as part of his intelligence unit.  Their job was to brief and debrief the aircrews and provide the feedback to the PSC.  Worked pretty well.  YMMV

[Eclipse]

Depends on the scope, and I'll grant you that the brief / debrief concept in CAP is
poorly implemented, and debriefs, especially in training, are sometime afterthoughts.

In a small mission, its the Branch Director.

In larger missions, the BD should have qualified staff (i.e. other BD's, GTL's, MP's, etc.)
to do the debrief, but shoudl still try and be included if possible, especially in situations where one teams input will influence another team's mission.

I think having the PSC involved is a great idea, but have not worked that way - generally
being the buffer between teams and PSC.

[sardak]

In my other world (non-CAP), debriefing is conducted by people from the plans and/or ops section.  Regardless of who does the debriefing, the debrief information is given to plans for sitstat and for discussion with ops at the pre-planning (tactics) meeting.  Obviously, critical information is shared immediately (hopefully).  Since Intelligence is now a recognized function which can be placed anywhere in the ICS structure, someone from the intel function may be involved with debriefing. 

There's no problem having  A/G branch directors, GTLs, MPs etc. do the debriefing as long as the debriefing is done properly, information is recorded and given to the plans section in a timely manner. 

Unfortunately, debriefing is a task that is often done only "because it's supposed to be," but the information is not recorded or recorded incorrectly.  Even worse is when debriefing information is never passed along or is not reviewed by plans (or ops or the IC). 

Mike

[Ranger75]

I appreciate your inputs.  The lesson I took away from my experience of having performed duties as AOBD on a number of wing-wide SAREXs is that Branch Directors easily become overwhelmed when responsible for briefing, receiving backbriefs, and debriefing departing and returning crews.  The frequent result is a backlog of sorties waiting to depart and a possible delay in disseminating relevant information to other ICP staff members.  As I look toward completing qualification as an IC3, I have given some thought to breaking that log jam.  As an AOBD, I made up an aircrew briefing chart I posted in the aircrew ready area that would provide as much information as possible that was common to all sorties.  As a result, I would refer to that chart during the general mission briefing and forego a duplication of the information during the individual crew brief.  Sardak suggested one option that follows along my own line of thinking.  That is to identify an individual to take on intelligence responsibilities under the supervision of the PSC.

[RiverAux]

For major missions we usually have specific people assigned as briefers, but unfortunately debriefing is hardly ever done other than making sure they filled out the backside of their 104.  Ground teams are almost never debriefed as the base has usually been disbanded and they go home directly. 

[Short Field]

Consider the information flow...

The customer passes his information requirement to the IC where it is evaluated and accepted.  The PSC is responsible for developing tasks that should satisfy the information requirement.  Tasks are passed to the OSC to create a sortie ( aircrews/aircrafts/tasks).  

The ideal person at this point to brief the aircrew on the mission task is the PSC since he created the task and articulate best the task's objective as well as answer any questions about the task.  After the mission, the ideal person to debrief the aircrew is the PSC - again because he created the task and can ask non-obvious questions of the crew to better evaluate if it was satisfied or if he needs to build another task or have the OSC re fly the initial task.  

The PSC is also the person who is most capable of determining when the combined information received from the tasks satisfies the customer's information requirement.  Note:  Ground teams left out but use the same process.  OSC & PSC refer to their staffs as well.

Ideally you would use AOBD qualified PSCs to brief aircrews and GBD qualified PSCs to brief ground teams.  

A good debriefing is really a "friendly" interrogation where the debriefer is trying to extract all the relevant information the crew possesses - even if the crew didn't realize it was relevant.   That takes skill and training.

Of course if you are just trying to get the 104 filled out as fast as possible, anyone can do it.

[Short Field]

FWIW - when I was in the USAF, aircrew debriefing and preparation of the mission report was an intelligence responsibility. 

[lordmonar]

Breifers and debreifers belong to the Planning Sections Cheif.

This very topic is a major point of discussion here in Nevada.  There are no qualifications for breifer/debreifers in the ES task guide.


Our best estimate is that they should all be AOBD/GBD qualified and PSC (trainees) at the least.

For the reasons stated.  It is the Planning Section that is the heart of a Mission Base.  Everything that happens flows into and out of the planning section.

[wingnut]

FWIW - when I was in the USAF, aircrew debriefing and preparation of the mission report was an intelligence responsibility. 

I agree that we are no longer functioning in just the SAR environment, I believe that CAP should consider creating an Air Intelligence section that Will encompass the needs of the Customer including Photo Re-con, Sensor data (Not just Archer), classified Debriefing by someone familiar with the mission profile, the Customers requested services, and who has a situational awareness of the mission. NOT JUST TO FILL out the back of the form I know thats important but I am not convinced of how much it was used other than stats we as aircrew seem to be excluded in much of the process. Again I am not throwing darts. But I think some former air Intel Guys need to get involved to reorganize that 'new CAP division!!

[Hoser]

IMHO, who debriefs isn't as important as getting it done and the info gets to who needs it. That is a biggest way clues are processed. The Inland SAR Planning School emphasizes gathering and evaluating clues. The PSC in my world however would be the debriefer as accounts change after multiple iterations and get distorted when passed through several people. Not intentionally, that's just how it shakes out.

[lordmonar]

FWIW - when I was in the USAF, aircrew debriefing and preparation of the mission report was an intelligence responsibility. 

I agree that we are no longer functioning in just the SAR environment, I believe that CAP should consider creating an Air Intelligence section that Will encompass the needs of the Customer including Photo Re-con, Sensor data (Not just Archer), classified Debriefing by someone familiar with the mission profile, the Customers requested services, and who has a situational awareness of the mission. NOT JUST TO FILL out the back of the form I know thats important but I am not convinced of how much it was used other than stats we as aircrew seem to be excluded in much of the process. Again I am not throwing darts. But I think some former air Intel Guys need to get involved to reorganize that 'new CAP division!!

Briefers should be doing a lot more then filling in the forms.  They are their to insure the crew know what the mission is and to insure that the crew has a viable plan to accomplish that mission.

[wingnut]

Yes but the reality is that on the last few 'Big " missions the debriefing was done in a rush and often just to get it done so the crew could go home.

[floridacyclist]

I've seen it mentioned a couple of times here about debriefing being glossed over because folks just want to get r dun and get out of there....especiall since everyone else might already be gone. On my last wing sareval, by the time we got back to the mission base, it was closed and everyone was at "the real debriefing session" at a local watering hole.

That said, the real value of a debriefing is not so much on the last mission of the last day (which is usually the last mission of hte only day) as it is on a multi-operational period mission.

In an ideal world, folks come in, get debriefed, and the planning section chief (or designee) calculates the POD from the data gleaned in the debriefing. Using search theory, this directly affects the allocation of resources for the next operational period. If an area turned out to be more heavily-wooded than thought and was therefore searched poorly, POD goes down and when you crunch the numbers, will learn that it needs more search effort (more searchers or aircraft) tomorrow. On the other hand, if the searchers got into (or over) the area and found out that all the leaves had fallen and visibility was excellent....or had been instructed by ATC to search at a lower altitude, POD goes up and crunching the numbers might show you that you need less effort in the same area in the next  operational period and you can use some of your resources on a different area that needs it more....or that you need to widen your search area and look further from the original route in order since areas closer in have already been searched. Either way, in order to make accurate decisions for the next day, they need to know how today went.

[wingnut]

I think we all agree that the Briefing and debriefing process is extremely important, it has occurred to me that usually on a mission the mission staff are so overworked that often they are walking zombies by the 3rd day. I hate to beat a dead horse but we have got to recruit mission base staff. (MORE, MORE) I would like to see National pay for an Add in the Air Force times looking for those people who are going to hang up the Active duty uniform  and just maybe these patriots will be willing to bring their professionalism to CAP were they can continue to contribute to the cause. I am afraid we will be facing some serious homeland security issues for a very long time. We could use some senior NCOs from all branches of the military, Maybe a few officers too, but I always hated taking coffee to the Colonel.

[RiverAux]

Where this lack of focus on this issue comes into play is photo missions.  I've hardly ever seen photos taken during SAREX sorties seriously looked at and handled as if they were going to go to a "customer".  Mostly they aren't even downloaded.  Then, when you end up in a real mission it is a real headache to deal with aircrews who never had to deal with any criticism of their photos and more importantly, their recordkeeping procedures. 

[Short Field]

Where this lack of focus on this issue comes into play is photo missions.   

No joke!!!  Especially considering that any customer that gets photos is going to be happier that one who doesn't - even if they didn't specifically ask for them.  I am talking about select photos, not a data dump from the guy with the new camera with the telephoto lens who just took 100 photos of a airfield.

Even a SAR mission could benefit from photos to show other crash sites that were found or stuff on the ground that looked "almost" like a crash site.  You wouldn't want to dump a bunch on them, but it could help out a update briefing to show we really are looking and seeing stuff on the ground.