Lessons Learned from October 4th Drill

First discussion: Lessons learned from October 4th drill.

Please add your thoughts in the comments below.

Here are the observations from Rod Pharis from SCAPA DART (South County emergency airlift team).

 My two-cents from SCAPA DART follows: I liked that you had a sectional chart displayed and the org chart projected for convenient reference. I liked that safety vests were worn by the managers, and had large placards showing the persons name on the front and the position on the back.. I liked that you had handheld comm radios that were very effective. I liked the attention to newspaper publicity and inviting the district Supervisor to see what you are doing. Very smart! I also very much liked the friendly professional attitudes

 Not having seen your documentation, I’m not sure what the status of that may be. However, I didn’t see any of your disaster Plan manuals, or the individual Manager manuals being referenced, and the related forms unique to each manager’s duties. Even the pilot sign-in sheet was made up of what looked like a car rental form, asking for a driver’s license number. Is that because you have not studied the plan in detail, or because you prefer to operate on a less formal basis? Because of the litigious society in which we must operate, SCAPA DART much prefers and strongly recommends that we all operate formally like a mini FedEx service. Document everything. Know who is delivering or picking up what and where. What are the pilots credentials, and is the pilot current? Is the insurance policy valid, is the airplane airworthy? When is that airplane expected to arrive at the destination, and how many pounds of cargo and how many soles are on board? Who is monitoring the status of each fight? Are you weighing the packages, and marking the weight on each package so the pilot will know what is being loaded? Has the pilot done a weight and balance calculation, and is PC available to assist the pilot and to save time when calculating W & B? Is an airplane long overdue or missing? Who should be contacted? When do you send out a search and rescue mission?

You should make sure that you reference the latest DART V2.0 Plan which is available on www.southcountypilots.org and shows all of the latest forms, which have been vetted dozens of times. Some are multiple pages each of a different color for specific purposes. We are about to have all of our forms re-printed in preparation for our annual exercise in mid-November, and to update them to the V2.0 level. If you want some of these forms we could double our order, which would reduce the price per copy and save you and us some money. We should know by next week what the dollar amount would be either way. Look at the forms in detail in Plan V2.0 ASAP so you will know what we are doing.

Please contact Paul Marshall or me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Fair skies and tailwinds.
Rod Pharis Co-Chair
SCAPA DART