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>> Speaker B: Fuel and Ignition switches on RPM
switches set TD switches normal
Doors and hatches closed Light out Strobe lightade
on restart check to completee your left engineers
start number two starting two
quick 3001 00:10 pilot project podcast their
takeoff Runway through one left.
>> Bryan Morrison: All right, we'ready for.
>> Bryan: ##Me departure here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories
and advice from RCAF and Mission aviation pilots brought
to you by Skies Magazine. I am your host, Brian Morrison.
With me once again today are Jason Shaw and Vince c. Benoit
of 435Transort and Rescue Squadron. Jason is
a pilot on the CC138 Hercules and Vince is a search
and Rescue technician or sartech. Guys, welcome to the show
and thanks again for being here.
>> Bryan Morrison: Problem.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Thanks for having us.
>> Bryan: Listeners can go back to our previous episode to hear about both Jason and
Vince's training experiences in their careers. For today, we're
going to talk about a rescue the two of them and their crew took part in
just over a year ago in December of 2023 when an air
Attendy flight crashed in the Northwest Territories. Jason was
a SAR aircraft commander and Vince was the Sarech team
leader. So before we start, let's get some background information
on the crash. On December 27,
2023, a Twin Otter operated by Air Tindy crashed
into a Hill about 300 km north of Yellowknife, Northwest
Territories and 16 km southeast of the
Dievk Diamond Mine. The Twin Otter was fitted with skis
and crashed while attempting to land on Lac de Gras.
Ten people were on board and survived the crash with various
levels of injury. Air Tindy President Chris
Reynolds told the local news that the flight crew was
circling over the landing area looking for snowdriifts. They hadn't committed
to landing yet. They didn't realize they had descended into basically
a whiteout. The only time they realized that they had descended was when
they saw a hill in front of them and that's basically where they impacted.
So Jason, what did this day look like for you? What standby
posture were you and your crew holding when this all took
place?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, so the plane crash happened during there's a two week
period where our uh, squadron is
pretty much operating on an on call basis. So on
like think of like an extended weekend posture from
home. So during that two weeks we
have uh, four different crews during
that time that are rolling through. So at any given time there's a
crew on two hour posture and a
backup crew which is on like a 12 hour available
posture. So for the most part um,
the techs are still going into the hangar every day
to do their daily checks on the aircraft, but that's
it. The AIRC crews are just going to be at home. So
everyone manages a little bit differently depending uh,
on where you live. But generally speaking you have to be
ready to after receiving the tasking,
be on your way to work within five or 10 minutes.
>> Bryan: And what's the process for a rescue asset to get tasked with a
mission?
>> Bryan Morrison: Well we get tasked by jrcc, yeah, Joint Rescue
Coordination Center, Trenton. Um,
they're going to get the info on a plane crash through a
variety of means. Uh, that particular crash
it had a 406 ELT.
>> Bryan: An ELT is an emergency locator
transmitter.
>> Bryan Morrison: Beacon which in that center in
Trenton they have an ability to track as well. I believe
they're also communicating uh, with them on the
ground some of the starives of the plane crash. So
JRCC puts that task together, they decide on the
asset that's best suited to um,
prosecute that tasking and uh, they tasked us.
>> Bryan: Okay, uh, Jason, can you describe the
initial call and the information you received? What was your immediate
reaction upon learning of the plane crash?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yes, it was about twoock in the afternoon. One or two in the afternoon.
Uh, the way it works is JRCC calls the aircraft
commander first and they start giving me
all the information they have for the tasking
and then once I accept it they call the rest of the crew, the
teh that we need to go in and tow the aircraft, fuel it
and any additional assets need to get launched.
So they had a pretty thorough,
let's say package of information at that point
thanks to the 406 and just some other information they
had. Aircraft, uh, for example aircraft
registration, type of aircraft,
its exact coordinates, uh, what time it had
crashed, the number of people on
board, which there were some changes there, some
general info on their uh, medical
conditions and even
that, an initial extraction plan for our satex and then
they had some information on some additional assets that were being pointed to
that direction as well. So getting all that like from
my perspective within the first four or five minutes on
the phone you can't really ask for much more than that because a lot
of times when we get tasked, they have some information, but they know
it's gonna be hours until we actually get on scene. So it's going to kind
of trickle in as it comes. But for that one,
pretty much all we needed.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: And some stuff got refined a little bit later on, but
generally it was like, this is the plane crash. This is where it
is. This is what's on the ground. We want you to go there and deploy the
satex. Um, you, like I said, a loose
kind of estimation of the extraction plan.
>> Bryan: What's the feeling when you get a call like this at this point?
Is it pretty old hat? Are you pretty
used to it? Do you feel calm or do you
feel a sense of urgency when you get these calls?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, I think at this point I'm used to it. I just want to make
sure that I'm getting all the information they
have, that I'm asking all the right questions.
They do a good job of pushing out everything they have. But I'm just
making sure that initial few minutes I'm on the phone with, um,
I have everything I need to kind of make a
plan that's going to be suitable. There's
sometimes not so much anymore, but maybe
a little earlier on, you feel a different.
Maybe the initial phone call or different points in the mission.
You can kind of feel a little bit of that adrenaline coming up.
I've learned it's not really useful for
my job. Maybe it is for other, uh,
trades in the sak cre, but I found
I just kind of have to push that down. It doesn't help you make decisions.
It doesn't help you hear and understand all the information
you're being told, for sure. So, yeah,
if you were just to be listening to me in my kitchen on the phone, you
wouldn't even know what I was really. It would
sound like another phone call, I'm sure. And I'm kind of sitting there writing
some stuff down with my iPad. And a
couple of early decisions that have to be made from that is
whether we want to load up extra fuel. Because if we want to do that,
they got to start getting the guys that are going to fuel the aircraft
called in right away as well. Yeah.
>> Bryan: Because that'll take a while.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah. And the sooner they can know, uh, have that
request, that can make that happen sooner as well.
>> Bryan: Now, you mentioned that they had basically all the information
you needed. Is that fairly rare when there's a plane
crash?
>> Bryan Morrison: Um, having that Much information
right in that initial tasking is probably the best I've ever
gotten.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: I mean, usually you have more than you need to get launched and the stuff
is going to come as they get it because they know
it's like it's going to be an hour or two before we're actually taking
off when they task us. And then we have like a three and a half hour transit up
there. So it is no big deal if they're still working on some
of the information and we're just pointed in that
direction, flying there. We're going to get it.
>> Bryan: Um, because you can refine the plan as you go,
basically, as they feed you information during the transit.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: As long as we have the basics, where it is, what to expect,
what the overall intent of the
mission is.
>> Vince C. Benoit: But that plane, uh, had the 406, was on
a flight plan and I had a sat phone on board.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So not a lot of flyers out have all of that.
>> Bryan Morrison: I'm pretty sure. I don't want to misquote them, but by
the time they tasked us, you might know this as well. I think they
were actually talking to them on the phone. That's how they had some of the casualty
conditions.
>> Vince C. Benoit: The pilot was talking to
the owner of the company, and the owner of the company, I was talking
to rcc.
>> Bryan Morrison: So to get that in that initial phone call,
that's pretty huge. What else do we really need? Right. I'm just
thinking making sure we're happy with the extraction plan
and that you're usually not going to get a detailed
extraction plan right then because
they're still working on that as well.
>> Bryan: So when you get that call, how do you divide up the tasks in order to
take off as soon as possible?
>> Bryan Morrison: The great thing about that is I don't have to do that.
Uh, everyone on the crew is
qualified professional in their job. So it's
not a matter of me tasking each
crew member what to do.
>> Bryan: Like, you're not like, hey, you got toa do this, you got toa do that.
>> Bryan Morrison: So I'll walk through a little bit what the crew does. So we have
theot, two pilots, the aircraft come in and the first
officer. Then we also have the navigator who is an
axo, the FO and the nav. Uh, they're doing a lot of the flight
planning, weather, noams. So I'm just gonna tell them the intent of what I want for
the flight plan and maybe a little guidance
there and they're going to get working on filing it
and even in that case, like our FO came up with some good ideas that
I didn't even thought of because I just kind of
gave a general intent. Right?
>> Jason Shaw: Mhm.
>> Bryan Morrison: Um, the flight engineer, Loadmaster, they're at
the plane, they're pre flighting it, getting it ready to go. The teh are, they're
fueling it, towing it. Um, if they come
up, if they have any problems, those guys, they might call me and I
can maybe from my end help help resolve
them. And the Sartex. Like,
I'm definitely not telling Vince what to bring, what to
do. He's taken care of all that in this case. He
even went out and got a third SAR tech based
on the information he had got about the
situation on the ground. So yeah, I'm
not tasking people telling them what to do. It's more just kind of
making sure everything's flowing in the right direction and solving problems as they
come. And I'm reaching back to JRCC a couple times during
that process and check and make sure there's any updated
information.
>> Bryan: Okay. So it's more of a collaborative process.
>> Bryan Morrison: Everyone's doing their job.
>> Bryan: Vince, what was the first you heard of this mission and how does the SAECK
team get the call?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, I was actually in whenipeg
running some errands with the family.
Uh, and then we got the call. So
uh, my partner at the time, she dropped me off with
uh, right in front of the anger door.
Kiss my kids, say, uh,
don't know when I'mnna come back.
Uh, love you, bye. That's normally how happens you don't know
when you're going to come back. Because at that point we knew
it was a confirmed crash and we knew we were authorized
to jump, which is not always the case. Sometimes you're waiting
for more information along the way. And as
the uh, mission develops, you're asked for
permission to deploy asset. This case, it
was pre approved. 10 people. That's
why we called in an extra SAECH. Um,
normally we are operating team of two and that's it. Team
of two for 10 patients you get
overwhelmed pretty fast. So I
elected to bring a third one.
Eindight. I would love to have a fort,
uh, for 10 people. I think next time I'll bring
more, uh, if schedule permits. That's
always uh, a concern.
Um, so did the startech
get call? Well, uh,
RCC is calling uh, the aircraft commander and then
RCC is going to call wing ups and wing up is going to go
down recall list. Uh, and
then flight engineer team Lead team
member and all that. If we want extra
emppower, uh, which is
call us directly or other sa tehs that are available in
the area at that time.
>> Bryan: Okay, so how does your team prepare for a call like
this? And how do you decide what to bring?
>> Vince C. Benoit: It's always look the same. We rush
to uh, the anger and start pre flighting.
So we confirm making sure all our equip is in order. We uh,
have operational. That's just an example. We have operational
parachute there in the aircraft that
we don't use on a normal training day. We only use for
option. I'm on the ground, I'm at
the anger, I make sure those two
are 100% correct.
>> Jason Shaw: Mhm.
>> Vince C. Benoit: That's a big thing because if I show up three and a half hour in the Arctic and I
tell you well my purachute's not working, that's a big
deal. So that's just one example. So we go through all our
gear same. A firefighter
would do that uh, before a shift. So we do the
exact same thing every morning on a call out is no
different. And then when it comes
to mission planning, when I receive a call
I always ask myself
I need to bring extra equipment while I'm still here. Do I
need to bring extra manpower or womenower?
Because we'got uh, wicked female sartehs
so let's not forget them. Um, do I
need extrar people and
can I execute that mission on my own with my own
asset? Should I request RCC to
task other units for that? And
I also look at the weather. Although not my job,
I'd like to be prepared to know what I'm getting into.
Uh, we'll talk about the weather for that one. But when I pulled
the weather it was the first thing that
popped to my eyes was a low level jet at
60kn, um coming from the north. So I
was already thinking about that on my
way into the hangar door.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah.
>> Bryan: And just for listeners, that's basically a low level jett
stream, uh, is exactly what it sounds like. It's like
a low level uh, high band of
wind moving through the area. And 60 knots is probably close
to 100 km or so an hour. So
that's very fast. So we just started talking about
that. Uh, Jason, did you have any concerns when you looked at all the variables
for this mission?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, two things popped out right away. The weather and night
and well, I guess three with night in the Arctic.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: So talked a little bit about the weather. Maybe
I'll paint a little bit of a Broader picture. So that crash
area was northeast of Yellowknife. Uh, just north
of that area there was a low pressure system that was slowly moving through since
that afternoon. And kind of
all that nasty weather. The wraps around a low pressure system that
jet jet included. So really on the
forecast on the gfa, um, there was
forecasted severe low level turbulence. That was probably my
biggest concern. And then really
anything below a thousand feet,
um, it's goingn be low visibility, blowing snow,
then just multiple layers of cloud wrapping around that low.
>> Bryan: So really nasty stuff.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So everywhere.
>> Bryan Morrison: And you do pilot training, they bring up uh, a
GFA and you never go anywhere where all the colors are.
>> Jason Shaw: Right.
>> Bryan Morrison: We pointed exactly at that.
>> Bryan: So as sa often does.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yep.
>> Bryan: Did you have a plan fully formed when you took off or
do you take off as soon as possible and then finish the plan on route?
We've kind of mentioned that, but yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: And it's kind of been saluted to it as well. I think him and I maybe
at not even like a five minute conversation on the ground
because he's had his job to do, I got my job to do.
Just make sure we're both kind of on the same page Y yet we're
probably going there to do a jump. That's kind of like the
agreement. How exactly? Well, we'll figure that out in the way
and on the way. We didn't spend
hours and hours drawing up these detailed plans. It's like
we had kind of, I would say like three templates.
First option, we want to get there jump the start
tex as soon as we can to the plane crash. That's why we're going.
But we need a certain amount of weather to do that. Certain
ceilings. Um, so if we didn't have that when we got
there, we talked about dropping some equipment
first and then maybe the ceilings would
improve, um, a little less
favorable because now there's no one on the ground to receive that equipment. And
there was high winds as well. And third option, as part of
the mission planning, when we took off from Winnipeg, we uploaded
just about the maximum amount of fuel that hurt can take,
which would have, depending on where our bingo plan
was, would have given us like four hours on
scene. So kind of least favorable of
all the options to go up there and just wait. ###ill the weather
improved because that low was moving through on the
scale of hours. So it's really like
those three plans maybe Vincecent and I talk about
some of the details of how the sequences are going to go and we're
just Going to see what the weather is. Because
at night it's almost like
a playbook of things. We have maneuvers and sequences we can
do to accomplish our job. And it's just
adapting to what we actually see on the ground, what the weather's
doing.
>> Jason Shaw: Okay.
>> Vince C. Benoit: We talked a lot about bingo plan as well. That's a big
part of the. Because once
you get dropped off in the middle of nowhere, you want
to know where your asset is going.
And big picture, what's the best
outcome for that asset and what'quickest recovery we can
get from it.
>> Jason Shaw: Yep.
>> Bryan: So, uh, Vince, did you guys have to bring any extra gear for this
mission?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, yeah, we brought extra, uh, like
warm equipment, like extra tents, extra
hothermia kit. Because we
carryl a lot of equipment on the earth. Uh, it's
insane the amount of gear we carry.
But always we're not set up for
10 patient in
that type of cold environment. So we grab
chts, sleeping bags and all that stuff that we all
have that gear ready at the anger.
>> Bryan: So Vince, what are starttehs doing during the transit to a crash
site? Are you making any preparations or running any drills?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Every team lead is going to run as mission differently.
The way I approach it, the same way as I was doing back in the army,
is we always tackle group uh,
equipment first, uh, followed
by personal equipment, followed
by hydrate, eat and
rest. So we add three and a half
hours to go up there. We prepped all the
hypertothermia equipment, all the big bundles that the aircraft
can drop to us. Everything that was critical was
rigged, followed by all our personal equipment.
So we jump heavy bags in front of
us. That's um, medical gear.
That's our own survival equipment for cold weather.
Uh, that's uh, firearms for bear protection.
Name it, uh, electronics for medical,
um, food, all that stuff.
And then, uh, on board we had the
lonemaster and I asked him to cook us some warm
meal because we have three and a half hours. So we cooked all
the entire crew a warm meal. We had a warm breakfast
before going out because we knew we would be busy there in theire night.
I had breakfast, it was dinner time,
um, followed by rest.
So I put my, uh, my team
members to sleepah. I assure you I didn't
sleep at all because your brain
just keepsing and tink and planning with
Jay. Uh, but that's kind of the order
of things we dok. So when we
show up to on scene, we're fully dressed and
ready to go. And uh, if
you can get an hour of eyes Closed. It's
always good, for sure.
>> Bryan Morrison: There's a few moments of the mission that kind of stick out. Just random
little things. And hearing him come on the intercom and ask the
lomaster, get some hot meals. Like
that's not something we would do at that point in the mission. Usually
he's looking to get his guys fed because, you know,
you're on the ground now for probably at least 12 hours at that point.
So I remember thinking like, wow, that's for
real now.
>> Bryan: Yeah, it's good thinking.
So Jason, how did you find the downed aircraft in this
mission?
>> Bryan Morrison: Okay, so we took off with our
tasking. Um, we had the coordinates from
the 406 LT, so the exact lat
long. And then we have kit on the HERC as well
that can track an ELT most
pilots get to understand, like on an ehsi, simple
needle. And we set up the kit and there's,
we call it DF Needle. So
really that's it. Um, we,
I took it a little bit slower entering the search area with the
concerns of the, uh, severe level turbulence. Severe low level
turbulence. We just kind of wanted to work our way in a little slower than
we normally would, kind of check it out
1,000ft at a time. Stepping down to make sure it was everything
that we could deal with. Uh, but then once we got
there, the kit, what we saw in the kit was coinciding
with the coordinates they gave us.
So we found it electronically first.
We're in cloud and we can see we're
passing over and uh, our kit with
a station passage, the needle flipping much like passing
over an adf, um, indicates that we're in that
area.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan: And for the non pilots listening, uh, basically
there's a, he's saying when he says an adf, it's Automatic Direction
Finder. Um, it's a type of navigational aid. But the point
is the needle will point to this source, this
radio source in this case. And when you fly
directly over it, the needle is pointing straight ahead of you. And
then as you fly over top, it spins around and now it's pointing behind you because
you just flew past it. Um, so that's how you know you've.
>> Bryan Morrison: Just flown over top and you're in the area, you still might
have some work to do to actually physically find it. It
dries on it, but at least you know, you're probably within
like a mile radius around it at that
point.
>> Bryan: Okay, so you arrived on scene about
7pm local time. What were the conditions at the time?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, so I Talked about working our way through potential turbulence
on the way in. Didn't find it was
anything that we couldn't deal with initially.
So when we arrived, how we do it is
we descend initially to a minimum ifr safe altitude
at night. So something like a couple thousand feet up there just to make sure
we're safe. Uh, what we initially saw,
um, what we were seeing as winds probably about
50 knots at altitude about
3,000ft and up and increasing a little bit as we
descended, um,
multiple cloud layers from 2
to 5,000ft and below
1,000ft. I think the best way to describe it is
pretty much a blizzard. Right? Blizzard below
1,000ft, low vis blowing snow,
high winds.
>> Bryan: So pretty ugly.
>> Jason Shaw: Yep.
>> Bryan: How challenging is flying the Hercules in those kinds of conditions?
>> Bryan Morrison: You gotta put it in context, what we're trying to do. Um, we're trying
to provide a stable platform for the guys in the
back, so a stable platform for them to
work basically, whether it's observing up the
windows, getting dressed to jump or when
they actually jump. So trying to fly the
Herc accurately, going from like a 50 knot headwind
to a 50 knot tailwind in windshar at night and
trying to do it in a way that it's stable for everyone to actually
do their job in the back, it's pretty challenging.
Um, in that environment it's kind
of, the pilots could probably understand. It's kind of like a
hybrid cross cheeckk. It's like a lot of time
you're inside on the instruments,
um, airspeed, altitude, the
navigation instruments, but everything is also outside. So you're trying
to, like when we're doing the drops, you're flying mostly
off of instruments, but you're also outside trying to line up two
little small light dots,
um, to do the actual drops.
>> Bryan: Sounds really hard.
>> Bryan Morrison: You kind of bring all those MOA skills
in VFR flying, IFR flying, and you're night
flying and you're kind of um, mashing it all into
one thing.
>> Bryan: Can you tell us how you clear the area of obstacles in those kinds of
conditions? And how do you find the aircraft visually?
>> Bryan Morrison: So I talked a little bit about the playbook of things we use.
So we call that a training target assessment.
So essentially we show up at an altitude that's safe for
us. Uh, we're going to drop flare and then we're
going to descend around the flare and the flares just basically
il illuminating the area. And the
first step is we're trying to make sure the area out to a few
miles is safe for us to Operating in. So during that
time the other pilot's going to be flying and me and
Vince, I'm out my window, he's out the side and we're just communicating.
We're looking for terrain, obstacles,
um, low lying fog, maybe
power lines, anything that's going to make it unsafe for us to
operate within that few miles. We're happy
with that. Now we're going to keep descending and
now we're actually trying to find the target. So this occurs
all after we've located the target electronically and we
put that in basically the kit of our aircraft.
So now we're around where we know the target should
be. And we were really
fortunate on that first flare, um, we actually
saw the aircraft. So as we're talking look
outside, um, and I still
remember to see the intact aircraft
on the tunder floor. Me and
Vince are talking, I'm sure at that point he's also trying to
pick out a DZ for where they could potentially jump.
>> Bryan: And for the listeners a DZ is a drop zone.
>> Bryan Morrison: Um, I think maybe one of the Startteks saw
tent at that point. But
really big moment in the mission and really fortunate for that to happen
on that first pass like that because that can take. We could have
had to climb up and try flares like
multiple times to have that happen. Um, that was the
only time I ever saw the aircraft the entire mission.
>> Jason Shaw: Oh, wow.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yep. Uh, the rest of the time flying it
was a light or whatever, something they'd put to kind of
so I could see where the down aircraft was.
>> Jason Shaw: Wow.
>> Bryan: So that's pretty lucky.
>> Jason Shaw: Yep.
>> Bryan: So Vince, as part of all this you were able to confirm that the ceilings
were above the minimum to jump, but the winds were twice the training
limits you would normally work with. What are the extra risks
when parachuting into these kinds of conditions, especially with all the extra
gear you had to jump with.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So just to put it in perspective
or training limit at night would be 20
knots. Uh, the win on that
specific jump was above 50. I don't have the exact number on
the ground but it was as I
described on my first radio check. It was
sporty. Uh,
so
people often describe Starrtek as cowboy
because we parachute,
we ski, we climb mountains,
we do all that stuff. But it's
quite the opposite actually. You know,
uh, we're flying, we're getting into that uh,
that nasty weather and
I'm assessing the risk. Same same as
Jay's doing upfron. I have two brand
new team members in the back. Do you
have kids at home? I just kiss my two
kids goodbye. Uh, so it's
not something we take lightly. I would not
jump in 50, not win on a
normal training day. Yeah, but there's 10
people there that are. That are
dying from the element, really, that needs
help. So what do you do?
Right, of course, you
can't take a harsh or
drastic decision just based on the sole fact
that there's people that need help. But it weighs.
It weighs in the equation for sure. Like, we would be lying if
we'say otherwise. So you kind of
tackle those risk factor one at
a time, and you kind of dissect it.
So the way I see it is Jay and I
are kind of dancing. We show up on scene.
He's got his plateful, he's flying into that.
I got the thing I want to do, but we're
not. We don't want to step on each other's
toes, and we just dance with what
we got. So I'm in the window looking.
He's head, uh, down and up, flying. And we
kind of do our best to make it. To make it
smooth. And everybody is on comps. So if one of us
step on each other's toes, we lose the
pace. So we're kind of dancing together, and then
we're assessing the risk. And
yes, it was I risk,
but I reward, uh, it was
also I was confident we could
execute it because of the way we train
our people, because of my trust in
the procedure, because we train them all the time,
and my trust in the crew around me, I knew
we could execute it. But that's not a
decision I took on my own. And
Jade didn'force me to do it. We came up
with the best course of action. And
I remember pausing before I stepped out,
before I went on off gu
I after my brief, I was like, okay,
crew, this is a pretty spicy
one. Is there anything I forgot? Is
there anybody in their crew that's not comfortable with that right now? Now
it's the time to speak. Because, of course my two
team members are going to say, yeah, yeah, we're going. Yeah,
yeah, okay, sure. They're always going to say, yeah, we're
good.
>> Jason Shaw: Uh, yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: It's a crew decision.
>> Bryan Morrison: The AC team lead kind of
relationship. Like he alluded to it. I
can't order them to jump, nor would I want to,
but everything that leaves the aircraft
is on my authority as well. So it gives us no choice but
to actually work together. And if we're not,
it's just not going toa work.
>> Bryan: It's interesting. So what's going through
your head when you're about to parachute into a remote location in the
dark?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Again, the safety, I, uh, did
not realize it at the time. That's
eyinsight.
It took a lot from me
to take that decision and put
my members into arm's way, if that makes
sense. Uh, it's not something we took
lightly, but again,
um, we were trained for it, and it went
well. Um, yeah,
so we mentioned that you'd.
>> Bryan: Be jumping with a lot of gear. What exactly were you jumping in
with?
>> Vince C. Benoit: So, yeah, every sateh are
jumping with, uh, what's called, uh,
a sar pels. I don't know what the akron
stand for, but it's a bag that's strapped to the front of your
parachute and connect to your leg, and it's mounted in front of you.
And in addition to that, you can put an extender
bag in front, and
you can even add a snowshoe bag.
So in this machine, we had £100 Trapp
in front of us, like medical gear, survival gear,
food, water. That's crazy,
because we need to
survive for a minimum 24 hours,
no matter what condition we're in. What if all of the rest
of our equipment get lost? What if as
soon as I leave the ramp, the
aircraft got RTB for an emergency? Now
I'm stuck in the m middle of arctic in a blizzard at night. I
need that gear. Uh,
so, yeah, medical gear, electronics,
survival equipment. Um,
I jump a shotgun for bear
protection because. Or wolf
protection, because sometimes we
need protection. Ended up
not ning it. Even polar bears didn't want to go out at that
time that night.
Um, yeah, about 100
pound.
>> Bryan: That's crazy. That's a lot of stuff.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan: So, Jason, walk us through what happens during the jump from
your perspective.
>> Bryan Morrison: So again, it goes back to our playbook.
Um, there's a couple options. We have to get
sartex into a location at
night. Uh, this procedure,
essentially, we go to our drop altitude. We
opted, uh, to jump them at 2,000ft that
night, and we drop a wind drift indicator,
which is just like a giant, like, we call it a disco ball,
and it's just a green disco ball lights
up, and that kind of tells us what the winds are doing.
So then we get our timing off of that. Uh, we climb
up a few thousand feet for the flares. We're
going to drop flares up into the target so they kind of flow
back over the target. We're going need to descend down over the
target using that, um, wind drift
indicator, start actuallynna jump out
and then we're gonna climb back up as quick as we can to get a second set
of flares out. So our goal is to make this whole thing illuminate
for them. There's illumination in the sky when
they jump and there's illumination in the sky when they
land. We need two sets of flares. Justus. They don't
last. Like one set wouldn't last the entire time
###mm uh, that was the procedure we used.
We didn't really make anything up with
that. We did it the same way we would do it. We would do
it when we train multiple times a week
doing what we call flarex. It's like a night trainer. The
only difference was now there's the high
winds and now we're going through
layers of clouds as we're dropping
the flares. Which isn't ideal as well.
>> Bryan: M yeah. Like, uh, are the flares still effective when
there's a bunch of layers?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah. Cause the wind just pushed them.
>> Bryan Morrison: So that's the thing too. Um, when the
winds are that high, we have to drop.
The idea is that we drop the flares and kind of at the
halfway burn time through the flares, they're over the target.
So when they first go out of the plane when it
winds that high, they're like three miles upwind of the target.
Which I think when we got the second set out, they were landing
and yeah, there was a second set of flares, but they were like
miles. So it's a challenge.
>> Bryan: Um, so in those conditions, not only are they far away,
but they could that have layers of cloud between them?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, I tried to mitigate it as best I could. We dropped them lower than we normally
would, but at the same time it's um,
a challenge.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
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>> Bryan: So Vince, tell me about the jump from your perspective. What was it
like?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, well, I let this stick. Depending on the
scenario, sometimes the team lead. Will I like to go first or
last? Uh, in that case I wanted to lead uh,
the guys in. Just to give you
an idea. When we do ey win jump because we
train here in Shadoh all the time and do night
jump normally if I have a
30 second count from the target to my exit
point. It's windy
that night and I'm talking about like
3,000ft or 3,500. That night
we jump from two and add over a minute
count.
>> Jason Shaw: Wow.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So picture I don't know.
>> Bryan: In distance you had to be a minute upwind from the
target so that the wind would blow you back towards the target.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: And we're flying at 120 knots during all
that. So you can do the math. Figure out how far up
when they're leaving the plane to make it back to the target. And we're trying
to get flares over them at that same
point.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So we jumped over a minute
past um and we mentioned there's a
blizzard from 0 to 1,000. Right. So that target,
you could see it when you flew right over top because you can see
through snow.
>> Jason Shaw: Mhm.
>> Vince C. Benoit: But you cant see it at a distance. So I got
out. I knew because of my
procedure, I knew my flare was on my right
and I knew I was going in the right direction.
But I lost the target. Um, I'BE honest with you, I lost the
target and I was probably for,
you know, for 10, 15 seconds,
maybe 30. That was a long time in my head
because there's nothing
y. It's arctic, it's in the dark, there's not a
single light. But I got it.
Uh, and then that's just
experience going into play. I just burned some altitude as
fast as I could knowing
that I would le backward into target
better or parachute depending on the way you load it. It's like
a plane. You want to land to win all the time. You
want to point your nose in the win.
It goes about 25kn forward speed
depending.
>> Bryan Morrison: How you load it.
>> Vince C. Benoit: That night were kind of heavy. So we would give you a
full 25 knot
point speed. So
if I point it in a 25 knot
win, I would go straight down if that makes sense.
>> Bryan: Yeah. Because it moves you forward at 25 knots.
>> Vince C. Benoit: That's right.
>> Bryan: If in still there.
>> Vince C. Benoit: That's right. Well if it's 15kn I know I'm going to
land backward very fast
and I Brief my guys for it because
we not uh, to go into technical details with
parachuting. I can shop my
main parachute
but uh, there's a system
that connects to that main that
will deploy your reserve automatically and
I win. You want to disconnect that. As soon as you have a good
parach shute over top of you, you disconnect that. Because
if you need to chop it, you don't want your reserve
to deploy. And then now you're reserved to drag you across the
tundra at 50 knots. So
uh, that's what we did. I found the target
and we landed within
200ft of the plane,
uh, perfectly. As soon as we touched the ground we
cut that presset away. We didn't want to get dragged
because you know from the air it looks
the tundra in the winter, uh, especially that time of the
year, it looks like salt and pepper.
Salt is good to land on pepper rock and the
rocks are pretty big. So you don't want to
get dragged across the tundra on those rocks.
Um, so yeah, no, it
went, went pretty well.
>> Bryan: That sounds crazy.
So uh, what did you see when you landed at the crash site?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Well, so first thing I uh,
always get in touch with the plane. Uh,
so Jay was pretty happy to hear my
voice. And I recall saying it's pretty sporty
here. And when I said that it's because the
full reality of it kind of.
>> Bryan Morrison: Hits you and you could hear on the radio he was in a
blizzard.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan: What's that like for you to hear them once they get to
the ground?
>> Bryan Morrison: Once they're out, we lose them pretty quick at
night because we immediately start maneuvering for the flares. So they're just
gone. And really the next thing is we're just
gonna orbit overhead continuing to provide flares until we hear
from them. So that jump.
Yeah, it's just open. Worked out,
just waiting and hearing like. And I remember
like that little bit of like kind of
comedy or just upbeat in his
voice. You can read a lot from
that and that kind of set for me
the second phase of the mission. I was just like oh, thank God that worked
out. We made the right decision and um,
we went forward from there.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So we landed 100ft,
200ft behind the plane, uh, so towards
the tail. And that plane was
stuck on top of a, I call it 30 foot
cliff snow bank.
And so the flares were dispatch up wind
of that plane. And I remember
looking in the blizzard, there's that plane
on top, there's a tent that looks like
a uh, Scene from Everest. It was just pinned down by the wind
because they were on top of that cliff.
>> Jason Shaw: Oh, yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: And with the flare shadow, it looked pretty
grim and intense. That hits me. That hit
me. I was like, oh, that's, uh, something you don't
see every day. Right. So we approached
the scene, we got together, everybody was safe, we grabbed their gear and
start approaching the scene. And then we checked
in with the people in the tent. Uh, initially there were six
in the tent and then four
were stuck in the plane still. Uh, so
we just checked in with them initially.
Um, and then I left one team
member at the tent and j.
Alex. So Matt stayed at the tent and Alex
and I went, uh, to the plane.
>> Bryan: So when you say they were stuck in the plane, like they were too injured to
move type thing.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Two of them were
injured. So the
plan, the way it landed is they saw that
snowbank last second, they
flared because they were configured to land.
And m. I'm not a pilot and I don't want to
talk too much in detail about how it happened,
but the short of it is they saw it last minute. They
flared, I think, and
they kind of belied. They
hit the front key and they
belied in that snow and stopped right there.
>> Jason Shaw: Okay.
>> Vince C. Benoit: In front of it. Remember the rock, the big boulders?
There's boulders. Square boulders the size of a couch in front
of it.
>> Jason Shaw: Oh, wow.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So a feet higher, different outcome.
A feet lower, different outcome.
Although unfortunate, I think they reacted
appropriately in time,
uh, and kind of save
everybody. But picture that plane just
hitting art and bellying everybody. It
hit art pretty hard in there. Everybody had back
issue.
>> Jason Shaw: Oh, yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Um, if you compound that
to pree. Existing medical conditions
and, uh, eight hours of being
sitting in a colal plane,
that was kind of the
medical issue, I guess. I don't want to talk too much in detail about it.
>> Bryan: We have to respect, uh, their privacy.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, but they were hurt and
they were stuck in there. M.
Um, sold. Two of them,
the pilot and another member
was in there to attend
and help them. Six other
were in the tent, all with minors and minor injuries.
>> Bryan: Um, was there any heat source in the plane or anything?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Or did they just have blankets and candles? Okay,
um, the thing is, that plane was on top of that
30 foot cliff.
>> Bryan: So the wind is just.
>> Vince C. Benoit: The wind is pounding it and
the tail is dangling off the edge like you would see in
a movie. So nobody wanted to go near
the tail.
>> Jason Shaw: Yah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So they are blankets. The thing is,
I know we're always being hard on, um,
pilots because you Guys don't like to dress heavy in the cockpit,
right?
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, they were all addressed to go work.
The plan was for that plane to land on la de
GR and offload them into Arctic to
work. So they're all addressed with they were.
>> Bryan: Dressed for the Arctic heavy gear.
>> Vince C. Benoit: And that's what saved their life really. Uh, because they
were equipped. Because imagine if all that
equipment was in suitcase in the tail that they can't access.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Different outcome for sure.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah, for sure.
>> Bryan: What was morale like on the ground when you arrived? I imagine they
were pretty happy to see you.
>> Vince C. Benoit: They were happy, but I was the Debbie Donner very, very
fast.
>> Jason Shaw: Oh yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: It's like, uh, hey, we're here. Oh,
we're happy to see you. But I'm like, we're going to spend the
night here. There's no rescue till the morning, so
don't stop fighting right now. That
was pretty blunt with that.
Um, pretty honest right off the
hop. Sartekss are never going to promise you something. They're
never going to lightie uh to you for stuff
like that. Uh, so I told him,
uh, you'll be here till the
morning. You got to keep fighting.
And I think it hit them, but at
least they knew what to expect.
>> Bryan: So Jason, while the team's jumping in and evaluating the scene, what
are you folks up in the aircraft doing now? What kind of updates are
you receiving and what do you do with that information?
>> Bryan Morrison: Well, initially we're just trying to try
to let them do their job. He's gon toa give me updates as he has them. I
know he has to dig out the radio from his jacket. It s
not just like it's in his hand at all times. So, um,
JRCC is asking me for updates. I pass
that on and I know that they're working on that, trying to get the
updates. Uh, we ve kind of switch into like a support role
a little bit. We know that we're going to have the follow on equipment drops
that's been rigged by the Sartex and Loadmaster on the way up.
We're, uh, kind of starting to get set up for that. We're getting the plane
position in an orbit where we're going to
get ready to drop the uh, follow on bundles
around the same time. So we
had been told in the, um, tasking that there was going to
be a team of mine rescue guys from the Diavic
Diamond Mine coming down to snowmobiles at some point.
And I had a different radio frequency for them, had that in
one radio. And then I had the radio with the satex and the other
and around that time before we started doing
the bundles and after they jumped I just heard those guys come up on
the radio and they hey huc
overhead. Uh, we're from a diabic diamond mine.
So given the terrain they were working their way down
there but they couldn't actually see the crash. They
just due to the weather and the undulating terrain.
So we would kind of fly over where the target
was and I would tell them as we're in the turn we're over top of the target
now uh, that would d be enough for them to kind of point in that
direction a little bit. But at some point that just wasn't enough.
I um, think this part I'm a little uncle. I can't quite remember. I
think maybe one of the satehs heard what was going on
and on his own just fired up a couple flares. I think it might have been
Matt. And that was that last little link like hey
we see the flares and they just married up. Okay, so
they arrived there but
yeah, kind of big picture for the mission at that
point we just switch into an overhead.
We're in a support role, whatever they need.
>> Bryan: So Vince, once you located all the survivors, what comes next in
terms of treating them?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, we I guess to
circle back to my teacher PC training.
Uh, what we learn on under TC
is it's combat care, combat treatment
and a big part of it is care under fire.
You don't do anything medically fancy
when you're getting shot at. Well now fortunately
nobody shoot at me anymore but
I still have threat. Being in
anarctic blizzard is one of them. There's
nothing medical, nothing fancy medical that's going toa
happen before we got shelter in place.
So that's when I call in for support
for equipment drop with the goal
of putting everybody into shelter uh,
so we can start doing medicine.
Then what happened at that point is
the uh, po
person rescue team from the min joined
and I was a bit of an awkward conversation because
it didn't comprehend. We just jumped from the plane
so we had to like take a minute
explain and like they told them, they told us
how cool they think that is. I was like cool
but we got a job to do. Re like okay,
you're the boss. Tell us what you want.
Perfect. So now I have four
hard working men with two snowmobile
that I can use. Circle back to
previous experience now use every single asset
or piece of gear you can to execute the mission. So
big concern of Mine was that dangling plane with
four people in it. So they got to work
intoing that, just
tying it down in the snow to one snowmobile. So now I
lost one snowmobile, But I was sure that,
uh, the plane wouldn't move. And then it was so
windy that I wanted to have another snowmobile on
standby to go recover those bundles. So I
kind instruct them that
and give them the intent. And at the same time, j was setting up
to do drop.
>> Bryan: Okay. And that really brings me to my next question, which
is that after the initial jump, uh, the crew of the herr
conducted several drops. Can you tell us about those?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah. So we had three different bundles. Um, we had the
hypothermia gear, the tents and
toboggan. So, yeah, really at that
point, the weather kind of continued to
deteriorate.
>> Bryan: Oh, it was getting worse.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, the viz reduced a bit, and the wind shear in the
lower levels was getting quite a bit worse. So
we dropped, uh, a second disco ball, as we called
it. And that's going to be how I'm going to fly. That
is, we dropped the disco ball. Then I'mnn orbit
around and then kind of line up on final. So I see the disco
ball, then I see the lights from the target
and just kind of like lining those two things up. So
down to six or 700ft. In that case,
um, we can do this under flare. But we opted not to just because I had
enough at everything I needed. And it would have been faster just to
kind of do three quick, uh, drops.
And that's what we did. We dropped. I can't remember the order we dropped them, and I think we dropped
to bog and last maybe. Um, but Vince was on the ground
communicating with us. He basically added the
DZ setup and the, um,
snowmobile on standby. So we'drop it, and as soon as
it came down, he would send him to go get it. We
come back around and do the next one. The next one. And,
um, yeah, it all went pretty
efficient. I think maybe we had a little bit of trouble getting on the first
one as the wind kind of shipped at a soft target to try it again.
But we got all three in there. I think there was some
difficulty, uh, with to bogging on the ground. If
you guys had to send the guy to retrieve that. Is that the one that
got away.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Or it, uh, was one of the hpo gear.
>> Bryan Morrison: Ho gear. Ye.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: But that's it. Then once we do that,
we kind of climb back, we close up and climb back a little bit, and we're
just kind of in a support role from there.
>> Bryan: You're doing comms, relay and that kind of stuff?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yep. It sounded like that's all the equipment he was going
to want from us. Uh so we're just overhead
and planning to stay thereill. Um, we have to get
out of there for fuel.
>> Jason Shaw: Okay.
>> Bryan: So Vince, how important was it to receive those supplies and did
the heated tents make a big difference?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, that was critical.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeahah.
>> Bryan: That was like make or break.
>> Vince C. Benoit: It was make or break.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah, yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: All those people were epypotothermic.
Uh that two person
tent with six people packed in.
Uh yeah, I was not making it.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So the tent I elected
to bring uh, that we grabbed from
we fly with two normally I brought an
extra two was um, their ice fishing pants.
Oay with no floor they're easy to set.
They take 30 seconds and they're up. So once
we got them Matt M, uh was in charge of setting up
camp and we set up camp downslope of
the plane so we were sheltered by wind
from the wind. He started setting up tent and
then uh, moving those six
uh people to the tents right away as I was doing
medicine in the plane. Soeah. We set up
camp and then yeah
Alex and I were on the plane doing medicine to stabilize those
people to bring them out,
uh, um, out of the Twin
Otter. Uh, which was quite
challenging. Uh, if you ever flew on a
Twin Otter, uh the nice
convenient exit door is on the
tail so that wasn't an option. Uh, so we had
to go through the emergency exit.
That was challenging.
>> Bryan: Yeah. With two injured people.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah. And they were bigger, uh
dudes, uh, hardwork, working men.
Um, so that
was a challenge.
>> Bryan: Yeah, that sounds tough.
>> Vince C. Benoit: But everybody uh, having
the mine rescue team
was very beneficial for.
>> Bryan: Made a big difference.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Oh yeah, for sure.
>> Bryan: So how did the weather affect your plans for getting the
survivors out of that situation?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Again we're on top of that ill. We were just
getting blasted by a very cold wind.
Fortunately it wasn't too cold. Uh, it was minus
15 I think air temperature.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah that was another thing. Like there's a few things that lined up like
that late December in the North Yellow
Knife. It could easily be minus you know
40 with the wind chill but luckily that I think it was
like minus 15 with the wind chills in the minus 20s.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: But still we needed to get everybody out of that
win. That's why we chose to go down
uh, downslope at a safe distance from that
plane.
>> Jason Shaw: Mhm.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Um, and once we
got Everybody there? We were quite comfortable.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan: You mentioned breaking the news to them that they wouldn't be
leaving until the following morning. What was their reaction when they found that
out?
>> Vince C. Benoit: I think they understood.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeaheah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: They stay positive, stay positive and
keep fighting. Because often you see, uh,
people start to shut down once the riskier come
in. Uh,
it's almost like their mechanism is shutting down and then they stop fighting.
Well, in that case all theyyputothermic and as
you know, if you're epothothermic, you just stop moving. It's just going to make
it worse.
Um, yeah,
no, they took it well. They understood.
They'also used to be up
north. They know how tough it
is to get uh, things going. And they
knew that weather condition was a problem too.
>> Bryan: For sure. That must have been a long night though. How was
morale through the night?
>> Vince C. Benoit: It was good. Um,
so Alex and Matt were in charge of the two
critical patients and I took
care of eight.
The rest of the eight patient, uh, plus
the uh, four minors in my two
guys. So there's a lot of
back and forth from me going to 10 to 10.
Some of them were able to sleep a bit so we stayed with
them for 14 hours. Um, so we
enter a protocol that's called prolonged field care for us
where ah, I like
to tell my guys that we move more into
a nursing practicing than paramedicine.
Uh, and that's where we're going to enter protocol.
Antibiotic, uh, for
trauma, um, make sure everybody is
fed, uh, we fed everybody
warm rations, make uh, sure everybody
drinks enough warm fluid. I was
able to uh, get some orange, uh,
juice from the plane crash, um,
which we bring to a boil. And then people were able to
drink warm juice, a lot of sugar to get their
temperature back up right, try to combat
hypothermia that way. Uh, we had sleeping bags
out, there's people that were
sharing bag ande
um, the focus was trying to get everybody
warmout the night. And
uh, there's one patient there
that uh, that I spent a lot of time chatting
with. All of them were awesome people.
>> Jason Shaw: Mhm.
>> Vince C. Benoit: And again, I know I mentioned it
earlier, you get
into situation like this on their end and
on our end it's situation we're going to remember for
the rest of your life. And you create
instant bonding with those people.
And there's one of them, uh, I'll um,
name his name, it's Chris, uh, and I still talk to
him to this day. Uh,
everybody was stabilized, everything was fine.
>> Jason Shaw: Ah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So we chatted about hunting
for three hours that night, Uh,
I, it was three hours because I would
uh, open comm window withit RCC and call
him every couple hours.
Uh, but I chatted onting with Chris and today's
day, uh, we still
talking. It was great.
The mor was good once they got
rewarmed because they weren't there for eight hours.
And uh, we all know how it
feels to be cold and lonely.
Uh, it's pretty lonely when you
crash in the arctic and there's nothing around and you don't know what's your
outcome.
>> Bryan: Like they were on the ground for eight hours before you got there. You m mean?
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah. Oh wow.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Well, by the time they
were'intent close to eight hours,
uh, enough to be cold, that's for sure.
And uh, once we got
the morale from initial contact
to the morning for
two different things.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah, I believe it.
>> Bryan: All right, so Jason, after three to four hours on scene you
were bingo fuel. Can you explain what that is to the audience
and tell us how you and the crew got home?
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah. In simple terms bingo fuel is a fuel
number that you now only have enough fuel to
leave where you currently are and go to your destination
plus whatever reserves you need. So any sary mission
we kind of have a couple bingo plans we call them.
Uh, one option we looked at was going to
Yellowknife. After there were some complications with that.
The Runway wasn'in good condition. Plus at some
point the rest of my crew minus the Sairetex but
we're going to have to do to crew rest and they weren't going to be ready for
extraction till like 10cl the next morning. So our
plane also would have been outside in those conditions as well.
>> Jason Shaw: Mhm.
>> Bryan Morrison: So what I opted to do is we around
that fourar mark we still had enough fuel and
crew day left to to go to Emonton
for a fuel stop and make it back to Winnipeg just
at the end of um, like an 18 hour crew day.
M so at some point when we're
overhead we're not really doing much
for them anymore. He's got his own comms set up, they have everything
we need. We're just kind of flying around overhead making
noise and communicate with Vince and
he's got everything he needs and we're coming up on that number
that we could still make it back to Winpe through Edmonton. So
that's what we did. We went to Edmonton, um, but a one hour turn there
for a fuel stop and ultimately got back to
Winnipeg around like 6:30am the next
morning. Oay but in doing that, remember I said we had that
backup crew. So they had been activated. The backup
crew was able to and come into the hangar shortly after
we got there, take the same plane back up to
Yellowknife and get them out
of the next morning.
>> Jason Shaw: Okay.
>> Bryan: Vince, what did it feel like when the HURC left? Is
there, like, a big shift in how that feels when you're out in the
wilderness like that?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Well, I knew they were going because Jay ran it by
me a couple times, like, okay, I'm X amount of time
from bingo. Do you need anything? No, I'm good. Uh,
okay, I'm running to bingo. You'sure you don't
need anything else? Because it would have changed its plan.
No, I think we got this Ann anal. Okay.
And then it goes quad.
You don't realize it. Jay mentioned
it. We're making noise, but that makes a difference because
I know I got support on my shoulder. If I. Even though I
can't go back in, I know they're there for me.
And then it just go quiet. And
that's a weird feeling.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Um, but I was on
comest with rcc and I knew the plan
and we were set up, so that was all good.
>> Jason Shaw: But. Yeah.
>> Bryan: Did, uh, the passengers
react at all when the Herc left?
>> Vince C. Benoit: No, I kept everybody updated. I was going tenant to tent,
and they knew the plan, um, of the
evac in the morning. They didn't really pay attention. They told me
that when they heard the hurt coming
before we jump, they were all relieved with
that because.
>> Bryan: Yeah, no kidding.
>> Vince C. Benoit: The age got a specific sound.
You can hear it?
>> Jason Shaw: Yep.
>> Bryan: Uh, Vince. The next morning, the survivors were rescued by a
helicopter. What was that process like?
>> Vince C. Benoit: It was the morning. It was like
nothing happened. The night before, it was blue skies.
There's no birds up there, but the birds would have been
chirping. No wind, perfect
weather. So everybody
were, uh, stiff and walked out of the
tent. And everybody was pretty happy. And I was in. Comes
with RCC again. And on radio comes
with D yellows when they came in. And
we mark three landing sites for them.
I think they were Eurostar.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: Asar. Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Asars. Yeah. Smaller helicopters.
Uh, but three pilots came in. They put the birds
down.
Uh, they shut down for some reason,
probably for safety. And, uh, I don't know. I
wouldn't shut down the midl of with Arctic and to
fear that it wouldn't start again. But reloaded.
Everybody there. Um, I think they made three
trips.
>> Jason Shaw: Okay.
>> Bryan: And they all went to the Dyvik mine from There.
>> Vince C. Benoit: That's correct. That was about 16 kilometers away.
Char Tripip.
>> Bryan: And that's where you guys went as well?
>> Vince C. Benoit: That's correct, yeah, everybody went there.
>> Bryan: Uh, what were the conditions of the survivors at that time? If whatever
you can tell us.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Good.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, again, stiff and
somewhat, you know,
injured, mostly back
issues. Um,
and you're after a big impact
picture a car accident. People from a whiplash
get very, very stiff because of the muscle or the
spasm. Uh, of course we have medication to help
relieve that. But you add ah,
mild hypotothermia sleeping on
in a cold tent, uh, for most of the night
it doesn't help. So everybody's kind of stiff. But as soon as
we got work walking and um,
you know, I put them to task and everybody helped loading the
helicopter and all that stuff. The people that could,
um, uh, the pilot, there was a lot of
help for me. We went uh, together in
the plane, turn off the ELT and the
couple tasks like that and uh, everybody's pretty happy uh,
to get out those tents and get in those shopper.
>> Bryan: Do you and your team pack up all the tents and supplies that are
dropped into the rescue site?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, we try to as best as
we can to leave nothing behind. Uh,
sometimes it doesn't happen depending on the nature of the mission
or the extraction. In this case, we left nothing
behind. Not even a piece of garbage
really. Same with uh, the water jump when we
did this summer before the fall. Uh,
we always bring everything back.
>> Jason Shaw: Okay.
>> Vince C. Benoit: If we can.
>> Bryan: So you and the survivors were taken to the
Diavic mine and then how did you get home?
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, so the helicopters brought us to the Divic
mine, uh, where they fed us a
warm meal. That was great.
>> Bryan: Must have been nice.
>> Vince C. Benoit: That was great. And then, uh, Etin did dispatch,
uh, two of their plane. Uh,
they loaded all patients in all their gear and then
uh, we flew straight
uh, to the a yellownife.
>> Bryan: Okay, and then you guys were picked up by a
Herc.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, in yellow knife. We were met by uh, ambbleance
crew, uh, also by family members.
So ah, that was
emotional to say the least.
>> Bryan Morrison: Um.
>> Vince C. Benoit: But everybody, it was a great day, great
outcome. Uh, and then yes, the crew that was
dispatched from Monipe, they were there waiting for
us. Um,
so we loaded all our gear into it and then
rtb.
>> Bryan: You guys must have been just wiped by that point.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, uh, we slept on the way back.
>> Bryan: Yeah, I believe it. No, you didn't do OJT on the way
back?
>> Vince C. Benoit: No.
>> Bryan: Oh man. Can you both
speak about the importance of training and teamwork when completing a
mission like this.
>> Bryan Morrison: Yeah, I'll just say it's really important. Like we take all the training we
do, essentially put it into
practice. And the whole mission from start to finish is
teamwork. It's uh, you know,
you're talking to just the two of us. But there was like
our first officer, Martin Tseum.
He was pretty new at the time. He did an excellent job. Jeremy
Simmons, he was our nav
with Corey Stewart was our lobemaster. Those two guys did all the drops
after the sa tehs were out. Uh, Dan Tromman, who
was a flight engineer. So the flight engineer during all this,
he's responsible for the airplane. So he's making sure that he's
watching me fly basically and
making sure all the engines are running properly. So
he's kind of our safety valve with
that. And then Vince's guys too, uh, everyone
did an amazing job. Like Matt and uh,
Alex.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan Morrison: So yeah, that mission was. It was the
whole SAR team,
JRCC, all the techs back at
435. They got the plane ready to go, the crew,
everybody.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yah, yeah. So on my side,
a couple things I want to mention is, uh, to go back to
my teacher, PC time and my training vision as I
try to recreate realistic training to prepare
us. But not only for
Sartex or for me personally, for the entire
crew. Uh, as we gain more experience.
I'm sure Jay's doing the same thing. He is going to pass on that
knowledge. Uh, and to give you an
example, I could, on a normal training
day, I could say I want to drop my own
bundle because that's my job. But I
don't prepare it enough to help me when I actually need
it like that mission. So I always
bring on a normal training day
a uh, piece of pie for everybody in the crew. Because
when it comes to a mission like that, everybody needs
to contribute to it.
And one thing I think
Sartehs are good at andway I hope
we're all very humble in the sense
that we're doing so much. I'm
not the best parach Shute is I'm not the best
mountaineer. I not the best diver. But
we're trying hard to be the best. And
we understand our weakness and our strength
so we can exploit
weakness and strength from other people. So when the
uh, divic mind rescue team came,
I didn't push him aside. It's like, okay, what can you
guys give me? What type of equitment do you have? What are you
good at? Okay, let's make a plan now. I want
you to do this, this, and this.
>> Bryan: Jason, what was your biggest takeaway from this experience?
>> Bryan Morrison: I think, um, just all the training we do
in, all the effort we put into it. You know, you never know when you're
gonna get the call. Um, on
December 27th, watching a
hockey game and hours later be doing a mission like
that. Just knowing that
you always have to be ready, you always have to be prepared, and you
can't make that happen just at the last minute.
It's months, years of preparation
to be in a position individually and as a crew
to be able to do a rescue like that.
>> Bryan: And uh, Vince, what was the biggest thing you learned during this mission?
>> Vince C. Benoit: I would say the biggest thing for that
year, not only that mission
is, uh, stress
is cumulative. So it might be
a simple mission one day, and then you keep that
stress level another mission
later. Just everything adds up and it doesn't
need to be. I'm not talking to Sartek in general. Im'm talking
about pilots or every crew member.
Stress will add up and at
some point you
need to take the time to
offload that stress.
Um, if you want to go back
and do what you're expected to do. Does it make sense?
>> Bryan: Yeah, for sure.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Uh, that's the thing I learned that year. Wicked year for
me. But
stress added up at the end of the year for sure.
And you remember m. I talked about it shortly
about, uh, the decision,
um, to jump into that
blizzard with my two,
uh, brand new team members. They're not brand new,
but one was a year of experience and the other one was just
off course. It, it
was a lot of stress that I was not expecting. It didn't
feel like a stress in the moment, but after that fact,
I kind of realized
that it was stressful for me in the moment
and it doesn't need to be Sarteh. It could be
in J'dac saying, okay guys,
you can do it. I'm sure that was stressful for him.
So for pilotss
air crew out there, realize that you're adding
a lot of stress. Take some time to reflect
about it and yal from it before, before you
go too far.
>> Bryan: How did you, uh, process that?
If you're comfortable in answering that, you don't have to.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Yeah, let's go right in it. I, uh, was carrying a lot of
stress and people around me,
my peers, we kind of realizing it. Know there's
things happening at home. We're not,
we're human like everybody else. Right. Uh, we
can save lives. But,
um, we're also human. And my
peers were the first one to realize it. And you know what I
did initially? I lied.
>> Jason Shaw: Oh yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: It's like, oh no, I'm fine, I'm okay.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Until that person made me feel
bad for lying to him after three times and
I finallyop opened up.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Vince C. Benoit: And I just needed to talk about it. That's all I needed
to do to make me feel better
and for someone to tell me, well, you
know, you're not alone. You, you're not
a superhero.
>> Jason Shaw: Ye.
>> Vince C. Benoit: So we're all like that whether you recognize
it or not. Just take the time to talk about
it. That's all you need for sure.
>> Bryan: Yeah, I can totally relate to that. And uh,
certainly my experience has been that opening up about mental health
stuff, stress, whatever, uh, is you will
quickly realize you're not alone. That if you're feeling it,
probably some of your peers are feeling the same thing. And it is
like the best medicine is to be able to talk about it
and take yourself away from just being alone with it.
>> Jason Shaw: Yeah.
>> Bryan: Okay. Well, Vince, Jason, I really appreciate you taking the time
to share your rescue story. It's always a privilege to hear firsthan
accounts like yours and it truly highlights the bravery and dedication of
our service members. What you both did that day speaks
volumes about the courage and teamwork that's required in these high stress
situations. So I wish you both continued success and safety
and everything you do moving forward. And uh, thanks again guys
for being on the show. I really appreciate it.
>> Vince C. Benoit: Thank youks.
>> Bryan Morrison: Enjoy it.
>> Bryan: All right, that wraps up our two part series
on the air Tindy Rescue with Jason Shaw and
Vince C. Benoit. For our next episode we'll
be sitting down with Major Brian Humza, uh, Kilroy to
talk about Lyft or lead in fighter training in Italy
and flying the T346.
Master Brian is an old comrade of mine from
phase two Harvard training and I'm really looking forward
to talking with him again. Do you have any questions or
comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you
know make a great guest or do you have a great idea for a show? You
can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcastmail
m.com or on all social
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As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with
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now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up.
>> Bryan: See ya.
>> Speaker B: Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all
four engines.