SERE training plays key role in aircrew mission

It is a pilot and crewmember’s worst nightmare: their aircraft goes down in unfriendly or unfamiliar territory.

Threats could include extreme heat or cold, having only sand or water in sight, or enemy fighters converging on their location, but Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape course instructors ensure that aircrew members here are trained to defeat these obstacles and return home safely.

This SERE training fulfills the preparation stage of the Air Force’s “Guardian Angel” weapons system — composed of SERE Specialists, Pararescuemen, and Combat Rescue Officers. Guardian Angel is the Air Force’s answer to personnel recovery missions.

“SERE has consistently been among the best courses taken in the aviation career field,” said Tech. Sgt. David San Marco, a recent student. “It’s a very effective course.”

The course hosted here, which is led by three instructors, is solely continuation training, said Tech. Sgt. Marc Richard, an instructor with the 27th Special Operations Support Squadron SERE flight. Every student has received initial training at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., and Cannon instructors provide refresher classes on these critical skills. These refreshers are required about every three years, depending on the aircrew member’s job and the aircraft in which he or she flies.

“Any aircrew member — pilot, loadmaster, contracted personnel — is required to attend the course periodically,” said Richard. “From the course start, the students are briefed as if they are prepping for an actual mission.”

A full scenario is played out as the students begin running through the training syllabus. In one week’s time students go through a series of briefings and tests. Emergency parachuting techniques are reviewed in the classroom. Later, combat survival classes are held at Melrose Air Force Range, near Melrose, and water survival classes are held at Clovis Community College. Aircrews that are assigned to Cannon also attend a local area survival class.

Combat survival can range from urban environment evasion by blending in with the local population to building shelters and fire in austere locations.

“With combat survival field training, students must traverse the range using an array of tools and make it to a predetermined rendezvous point where special operations forces will take them to safety,” Richard said. “In the future, we hope to use base aircraft to actually fly into the range and pick the students up and return them to base. This would allow for training our students as well as the flying squadrons.”

“Land navigation is my favorite part, but (every section is) valuable,” said San Marco, a flight engineer with the 73rd Special Operations Squadron. “They prepare you for unforeseen circumstances.”

Several water survival techniques are taught in the water training class. Students rehearse inflating, boarding and living in rafts. Instructors simulate foul weather by spraying the students with a hose while they accomplish their tasks.

“Once (the SERE program) purchases its new boat, we will transfer the training to Ute Lake,” Richard said. Ute Lake is located in Northeastern New Mexico. “We will even be able to simulate a parachute drag — where the wind fills the parachute and drags the person across the surface of the water — by towing the parachute behind our boat.”

“All of the things we train for have and can happen,” said San Marco. “You always know that you have this training to fall back on.”

The instructors hope that a more realistic training environment will better prepare aircrews to survive emergency situations, evade capture by enemy forces, resist enemy interrogation techniques and escape from enemy confinement.