
One of the many missions of the P-3C Orion is “SAR” thats Search and Rescue for the laymen. Three days ago I was assuming the “Ready-2″ a watch set up incase something important happens. If something important does happen they can call the Ready-2 and we can have our plane “off deck” and flying within two hours. Normally the Ready-2 is a day to get laundry done and rest, but occasionally it does get launched.
I got the call in the late afternoon that we would be launching that evening for a SAR mission South of Guam. The plan was to leave Japan in the middle of the night get to Guam at the crack of dawn re-fuel and go out and try to find a person that was last seen 30 hours ago in his 10 foot outrigger canoe fishing of the coast of a small island in Micronesia. It was going to be a long day!
We managed to get to Guam as the sun was coming up, we got a brief from the Coast Guard, and took on as much gas as we could carry and took off out of Anderson AFB, in search of a man in a 10 foot canoe. The normal Coast Guard C-130 was broken so thats why we got the call. They gave is a roughly 30×60 nautical mile box of ocean to search in, based off of the currents in the area for the last 30 hours. The guys chance of being found was roughly 38%. That first day we searched the box they gave us, and some small atolls, but we did not find our man. So we headed back to Guam to stay the night and try again first thing the next day.
The next day we where given a new box to search, and we also got some help. Overnight a Coast Guard C-130 from Hawaii flew in, and a CG Cutter from Guam had steamed to the op area. On the second day the guys chances of being found had dropped to 28%. We searched for as long as we could but our luck was not with us. Our flight profile had us at 500 feet, and from that altitude you can see a lot of things. We found all sorts of flotsam, from palm trees, to floating metal tanks, to small orange squares. We saw dolphins, and plenty of birds, but no man on a canoe.
The third day was planned to be our last day. So we fueled up and headed out in hopes of finding this guy. Again the C-130 and cutter where out on station with us. We all had our own boxes to search, and the guys probability of being found had dropped to 8%. I have a few recommendations for anyone that plans to go out to sea on a personal water craft. The bigger your boat is, and the more colorful it is the easier it will be to find! If you can bring a mirror or some other signaling device please do it. It is not hard to see an object as big as a canoe in the water, the problem is once you fly over it at 200kts, you have to turn around and find it again. There where numerous times where we would fly over a object that might have been a canoe and then could not find it again. So please if you plan on being lost at sea where bright colors, and have a big boat.
The guy we were looking for is probably one of the luckiest guys on earth. He was lucky enough to be spotted by the C-130 late in the afternoon on the third day of searching and the sixth day of him being lost at sea. He ended up being found on a small island out in the middle of the ocean. An Island that we had looked at on the first day. Although I don’t know for sure I would guess that the guy landed on it late the second day, or on the third day.
What amazes me is the response to a missing person out in the middle of the ocean. Its good to know that if Im ever lost at sea, there will be some people looking for me. People that don’t know me, but have a job to do, and will do it even when the odds are not in there favor. I will just hope the currents carry me to an island, and Im on a boat that is big enough to be spotted from 500 feet. The Coast Guard are experts at there jobs and take it very seriously. For us SAR is not our primary mission, but I can speak for all of my crew on board when I say we took this mission very seriously and Im proud to know that even though we were tired on the third day and our chances of finding the guy were slim, every person on that plane had there eyes out the windows and searching as best they could!
Here are a few pictures from our trip. These were all taken on the last day after we got word that he was found. Before that it was all business.
Clouds at 500 feet.

A shipwreck out in the middle of the ocean.

My future vacation spot. Very remote!

From the air at 10,000 feet and 5 miles this atoll looks pretty easy to spot. From ocean surface at 5 miles it would be almost impossible.

A parting sunset shot!
