Ready to respond: CDDAR team springs into action

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Jeff Loftin
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
Southwest Asia --  Like a superhero who gets a distress call, makes a quick change and rushes to assist, the Crash, Damaged, Disabled Aircraft Recovery Team stands ready to spring into action.

The 35-member team goes about their normal aircraft maintenance jobs until a call assembles the recovery specialists.

"Most days you do your typical job with the radio beside you," said Tech. Sgt. John Davis, 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron C-130 crew chief. "You try to have one or two guys around if you're doing a critical job you can't drop at that time. You just have to be prepared to stop what you're doing."

When the call comes in, team members rush to the scene to offer advice and recovery expertise.

"Before the aircraft lands we're more or less advisors," said Tech. Sgt. Jarrod Williams, 379 MXS aerospace repair craftsmen. "If [senior leaders] want to know what systems affect what, we're there. If one of the systems break, like the hydraulic system, he needs to know the pilot will not have brakes. We provide that insight."

The team, made up of maintainers from several airframes, also deploys anywhere they're needed in the area of responsibility to assess aircraft damaged in accidents. To do this they prepare for possible scenarios and always have their equipment ready to roll.

"We have load plans all ready made for different scenarios," said Sergeant Williams, deployed from Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. "All they have to do is pull the load plan and take it to the [Air Tactical Operations Center] here and it'll be on the way. It's on a moment's notice, drop of the hat over here."

Two members of the team recently responded to a C-130 crash in Baghdad. After a quick change, they were on an aircraft within hours of receiving the call. Once there, they were briefed on the situation and flown to the crash site the next morning.

"We did our initial evaluation of the aircraft," said Sergeant Williams. "We knew its location was going to be a problem. It was three miles outside the wire. A full aircraft recovery was out of the question. We also had to worry about the security threat. The decision was made to use plastic explosives to separate the aircraft into pieces due to its location, the amount of manpower and the risk to recover it."

The CDDAR team members worked quickly to recover as much equipment from the aircraft in the limited time they had. Soldiers were securing the scene and getting them back into the fight was deemed more important than a badly damaged aircraft.

"We were probably able to save about $3 million on communications equipment, radio boxes and instruments," said Sergeant Davis, deployed from Yokota Air Base, Japan. "We also removed all four engines. I don't know what the cost is for those, but I'm sure they're expensive."

Both Airmen said they would have liked to have been able to recover more, but the situation dictated quick action. The aircraft was blown apart by explosives and the debris hauled off on trucks.

"It was an odd situation to be so close to a base and to have to take it apart with C-4," said Sergeant Davis, who hails from Lynn, Ark. "It'll probably never happen again."

The paradox of recovery specialists watching the separation of an aircraft by explosives was not lost on Sergeant Williams, who has worked CDDAR for 12 years.

"The recent C-130 recovery has to be the oddest thing I've seen in my military career," he said. "It was the first ever combat recovery destruction of an aircraft in military history."

Although recovering as much of an aircraft as possible after an incident is a primary goal, it's not the only mission of the team.

"The goal is to get that plane off the runway as quickly as possible so the mission can continue," said Sergeant Davis. "Obviously you can't keep the mission going with the runway closed down. That is the main goal. Even if it means taking a bulldozer and pushing the aircraft off the runway, if that is what it takes that is what crash and recovery is there to do. It's supervisors' job to determine how we're going to do that. How much damage can we afford to do to the aircraft? They're the ones who determine which one is more important - damaging a plane more than it already is or keeping the runway closed."

A recent B-1 mishap here which resulted in the aircraft catching fire demonstrated the need for quick removal to keep the mission moving. When it was safe to do so the team gathered some parts requested by the safety investigation board and began recovery operations.

"After the fire was put out we basically used wax," said Sergeant Williams. "You wax it down with this solution of wax and water and it encapsulates the carbon fibers so they don't become airborne and become a hazard to those in the area.

"When we got the OK to start cutting up the aircraft and transporting it, we moved it all within two shifts," said the Fairfield, Iowa, native. "It was pretty quick. We cut the wing into three pieces and removed it. We moved the rest with the help of [the 379th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron] crane operators. All the ash was scooped up and moved with dump trucks. You go out there now and it is like nothing ever happened."

Jumping into action and quickly recovering aircraft requires special skills and training.

"We have the same Air Force Specialty Code as crew chiefs, but we're more specialized," said Sergeant Williams. "We basically do heavy maintenance. We rig flight controls, landing gear - all the things that make the aircraft fly."

Although training is essential, nothing beats experience. Sergeant Davis worked a C-17 mishap at another base, and Sergeant Williams has worked five aircraft mishaps in his career.

"Fortunately, plane [mishaps] are not a common thing, and when they do happen they usually are at someone else's base," said Sergeant Davis. "It's not something you want to see, but you prepare for it. When one goes down, you wish you were there to get a little more experience on the situation. Often it's like training for the Olympics and never getting to go."