06/06/2016
Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) volunteers in Kentucky recently joined
other volunteer organizations, law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency
managers in an effort to locate a missing single-engine private aircraft. ARES
teams and individual volunteers from Grayson, Hardin, and Davies counties and
elsewhere mustered on June 1 at the Owensboro Airport - the plane's destination
- to assist with communication. Kentucky State Police had put out the call for
information on the plane's whereabouts.
Members of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) also took part in the search-and-rescue
mission, and the operation had support from the American Red Cross, which
provided meals and water for the responders. The plane was believed to have
gone down near Rough River State Park, not long after departing the Falls of
Rough airfield on a flight back to its home base of Owensboro.
"We were only called out 'for communications,' so we didn't know what would be
needed," Hardin County Assistant Emergency Coordinator Shelby Ennis, W8WN, said
afterward. "Therefore, both W8QAS [the emergency communications point of
contact for the incident] and I took a lot of gear. Most of it was needed."
Kentucky Region 2 Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator George Allen, WA4YPQ,
activated Hardin County ARES and requested help from Kentucky Section Emergency
Coordinator Cecil Dennis, K4CTD.
Firefighter Andrew Whobrey, KG4OOZ, also served at incident command (IC) for
communications relay and support on non-ham radio frequencies, and there were
three radio operators at the IC to monitor the various radios and frequencies.
Ennis said four dual-band radios were pressed into service to monitor and/or
operate on up to a half-dozen or so different frequencies.
The crash site was spotted on the afternoon of June 1 in a remote area. The
downed aircraft was said to have been an experimental military replica that
flies at extremely slow speeds. A ground team subsequently reached the crash
site and removed the body of the pilot, Dr Robert C. Dalzell Jr of Owensboro, a
retired physician.
"The local emergency manager and the others [involved] were greatly
appreciative of our coming down and providing the communications for them,"
Ennis said. He noted that upward of 50 individuals, including a dozen or so
radio amateurs, were involved in the search effort.
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