Search

Let's take a closer look at the training needed to use some of the gear on SAR 1, along with how and why it is used on a search and rescue mission.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) says he is maddened by the fact that Coast Guard helicopters are equipped with night-penetrating Electro-Optical Sensor Systems, but can’t use them because of a “quirk in the federal bureaucracy.”

My unit of the RCMSAR had 87 calls in 2015, making it the busiest volunteer marine SAR station in Canada. It's a situation that motivates a tech enthusiast and advanced crew member like myself to think about better tools and procedures.

“We have made a decision that we will suspend at sunset tonight,” said Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor, chief of response for the Coast Guard 7th District in Miami. “The decision to suspend was excruciating and gut-wrenching for me.”