Jim Griggs, Captain, CAP Dep. CC / Seniors, IL-049
Palwaukee Squadron ESO, 1st Lt. Scott McKnight, has recently graduated from the Inland SAR Planning Course. Part of the Inland SAR School, it is located at the USCG Training Center Yorktown (VA).The 5-day Inland SAR Planning course is a comprehensive, “graduate-level” look at inland search theory and its application to land and air searches for missing persons and aircraft with a focus on wilderness, not urban, searches. The course consists of classroom lessons and practical, tabletop exercises. This course does not incorporate field training. Emphasis is on the planning necessary for effective area-type searching during an extended search using Probability of Success (POS), rather than just a few elements of POC or POD, to predictively allocate limited resources to their best effect (In essence, what to do after the hasty search and specialty resources have not found the missing person). Additional topics include pre-plan development, legal aspects, NIIMS ICS applied to SAR, the federal role in SAR, and related subjects. The course does not teach search tactics or technical procedures, as those are well covered from other readily available sources.
The course is directed toward SAR leaders in federal, state, and local emergency services and law enforcement, as well as Civil Air Patrol, international, and volunteer SAR agencies -- those few people who are responsible for the planning and overall conduct of inland search missions. The target audience includes on-scene incident commanders and their planners, operations leaders, and up-channel reporting chain. The general searcher or search team leader, while arguably the most important part of the SAR team, will not find this course useful. Aiming to "find the objective fast," the course centers on tools to help SAR decision makers determine where to search, how to divide an area between limited search resources, and how to craft the overall search effort to gain the best increases in likelihood of success at each step. The tools are mathematically based and not for the faint of heart; they help quantify the uncertainties of the search problem to allow consistent application throughout a mission.
In 1956, with the publishing of the first National Search and Rescue Plan, the Coast Guard was designated the single federal agency responsible for maritime search and rescue and, likewise, the US Air Force was designated the single federal agency responsible for federal-level search and rescue for the inland regions. In order to meet the need for trained Coast Guard and Air Force search and rescue (SAR) Planners, the joint service National Search & Rescue School was established.
Most recently, Lt. McKnight has graduated from the Air Force Rescue Co-ordination Center's (AFRCC) Search Management Course. Congratulations to Lt. McKnight for another successful completion, and many thanks for his commitment to the Emergency Services Program of CAP.
