Employees from the Mar del Plata Air Station and the Maritime Traffic Service “Subprefecto Dax Maximiliano Cosentino” today participated in the regional virtual exercise “SAREX IV”.
The virtual meeting was also attended by the Argentine Search and Rescue Service, the Argentine Navy, the Search and Rescue Service in Uruguay, the Argentine Air Force, participants from maritime and air search and rescue organizations and members of the International Civil Aviation Organization from all over the world.
During the “SAREX IV” exercise, its development is fully demonstrated, in which the different interventions and situations corresponding to each participating organization are created through the predefined channels of communication.
The purpose of this type of exercise is to simulate a crisis response that includes all levels of the Search and Rescue service. In this way, it is possible to assess the degree of coordination between these services, search and rescue coordination centers and sub-centers.
On this occasion, a simulated aircraft accident with three crew members and 12 crew members in the Atlantic Ocean near the judicial border between Argentina and Uruguay, which, after the declaration of a state of emergency, makes a landing and activates the Flight Disaster Site (TLS) transmitter (about 350). Nautical miles from the coast.
Once the scenario was defined, the communication chain and accounts were simulated to assist the aircraft, based on the calculations obtained from a specific software platform to plan the mission, create search areas and patterns, assign means, calculate drift, and keep an updated mission report step by step.
This exercise allowed for examination of participants’ standard operating procedures, identification of problem areas in operations, development or modification of local procedures and determination of whether it is necessary to amend national regulations, improve coordination and exchange of good practices among concerned agencies, and engage with the development of the search and rescue process.
