[Scan-DC] Military plane crashes in Augusta County, Virginia...more

[Bruce Harper]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:56 PM, John Wilson wrote:

> Limited cellphone and STARS coverage in the mountainous search area.

"Limited" doesn't begin to describe it -- "nonexistent" is a better
description. The Va. Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) put out
the call for search and rescue groups to send personnel to conduct the
ground search, which resulted in members from multiple groups arriving
at the Deerfield Volunteer Fire Department. There were about 10 of us
from the Southwest Virginia Mountain Rescue Group (SWVaMRG). I arrived
on the scene about 6 p.m. and we finally headed out on a task around
8:30 p.m. There were seven helicopters there conducting air searches
-- 1 VSP, 1 U.S. Customs, 1 unmarked (but folks who ran the tail
number got a return to U.S. Governement -- comments were that it was
either the FBI HRT or Homeland Security), plus a variety of military
copters. Since I'm near the bottom of the chain, there isn't much more
that I know. The search was a joint operation being run by the
military (don't know if VA National Guard, U.S., or who), the Virginia
State Police, and VDEM (since that is where the SAR expertise is). Our
comms were handled by a trooper on our search team, who was working on
Appomatox channels. The state radio cache was brought in (from
Harrisonburg, I heard someone say) but I don't know if those were
being distributed. There was one mast antenna erected, but I don't
know if it was for ground comms or air comms. Between the troopers and
SAR personnel, there were at least 100 people involved (mainly waiting
around until search areas were narrowed down), along with a couple of
FBI agents (called in from Charlottesville mainly to provide
manpower), various military types, plus support personnel from the
various agencies and the local volunteer fire and rescue folks. There
were also equine searchers in the mix. Corrine Geller from VSP was the
PIO for the operation. There were some young people from the Civil Air
Patrol there when I bailed around midnight. Search  operations were
suspended at midnight and were starting up again at 8 this morning
(but after hitting the bed at 3:30, I wasn't about to get up a 5:30
for a 6 a.m. departure).

Bruce in Blacksburg

Bruce Harper
Search Team Member
Southwest Virginia Mountain Rescue Group
http://swvamrg.blacksburgrescue.org/