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Crash recovery: Just in case

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jacob Morgan
  • 380th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  When an aircraft is stuck and can't move on its own, there is one shop that specializes in transporting it safely from one location to the next. Crash recovery personnel can dig an aircraft out of the ground after a crash, keep the people, environment and the aircraft safe, recover evidence for safety investigations, cut the aircraft into pieces if necessary and transport it back to where it's needed. They respond to ground emergencies on the runway and to aircraft crashes in austere locations.

The 380th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Crash Recovery Section's emergency response starts when they are called out with the Fire Department. Emergency crews make sure the area is safe from fire hazards and the air is nontoxic.

"After we assess the situation [on scene of an aircraft crash], our first job is to make sure we spray wax material on composite parts in order to preserve the scene and make it safe for others to enter," said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brandon Fitzpatrick, 380th EMXS Crash Recovery shift lead. "The compromised composite parts, or fibers lain on top of each other, can enter the air and be harmful to people."

Another important part of the job is to help investigators recover evidence, prevent any further damage to the aircraft and transport every piece of the aircraft to where it is needed. This requires the team to stay on scene until the job is done.

"If the pilot has ejected and the aircraft is in a million pieces, we pick up the million pieces," said Fitzpatrick. "If it is stuck in a tree, we cut down the tree and retrieve it. If we need to lift the aircraft off the ground and place it on flatbed trucks, we can do that. We can operate the jaws of life, rope and pulley systems, hot saws and a lot of other equipment to make this happen."

Runway emergencies can also cause crash recovery to respond. Some examples are brakes locking, damage caused by hard landings, or any situation where the aircraft needs to be moved. The section has the training and tools to lift the nose of a cargo aircraft off of the ground and forcibly lock its landing gear in place for tow - one of the more involved scenarios the team trains for.

Crash recovery is important; however, it's only one of three missions of the 380th EMXS Crash Recovery Section.

According to U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Ryan McGee, 380th EMXS Crash Recovery craftsman, wheels and tires, and repair and reclamation are the two jobs that keep them the busiest.

Making a tire fully capable in less than 24 hours to handle high speeds and rough conditions is a feat the crash recovery section is proud of.

"Once the wear limit is reached on the aircraft's tires, the flightline crew chiefs will send it to us," said McGee. "We break it down with our special machinery, pull off the old tire and clean the wheel."

When the wheel is clean, it is inspected for cracks, said McGee. It's then filled with nitrogen and undergoes a rigorous test for leaks before it can be put back on an aircraft.

The other part of crash recoveries mission, which is somewhat loosely related to the other two, is working repair and reclamation on flight controls, landing gears, canopies and other specialized parts.

"We consider ourselves a back-shop for crew chiefs," said Fitzpatrick. "The in-depth maintenance and inspections on the parts crew chiefs are responsible for falls to us."

This includes anything from throttle cables to replacing an entire canopy. The various types of systems crash recovery works on can be overwhelming for some. One day, the team could be working with hydraulic systems and the next with pulleys and electrical systems.

Covering emergency situations, routine wheel and tire maintenance and rare specialized maintenance is a large scope for one section, but Fitzpatrick said he believes they play an important role in the overall mission.

"It's like being a subject matter expert for rare jobs," said Fitzpatrick. "There is a lot of information and a lot of different systems, they are all put together in our section, which gives us a large amount of responsibility. Overall, we want to keep the aircraft safe and the runway active."