Five lives saved across two states in less than 10 days. When a U.S. Army Black Hawk crashed in Colorado and an experimental plane vanished over West Virginia, Civil Air Patrol’s National Radar Analysis Team (NRAT) raced against the clock, pinpointing critical radar data that guided rescue teams directly to the wreckage and brought every survivor home alive.
In both responses, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC) requested NRAT’s assistance in analyzing radar and Automatic Dependent Surveillance -- Broadcast (ADS-B) data to determine the crash sites’ exact locations after the Army helicopter flying out of Buckley Space Force Base on a training exercise went down in the mountains near Denver, and the hand-built aircraft was reported missing in a remote area of Jackson County, W.Va.
Using advanced tracking technologies and enhanced low-altitude coverage, the CAP radar team pinpointed the likely locations of the helicopter and the hand-built aircraft with remarkable precision — enabling first responders to rescue four soldiers aboard the downed helicopter within 45 minutes of impact and the pilot nearly 20 hours after his aircraft likely crashed.
This tracking location map provided by Civil Air Patrol’s National Radar Analysis Team led law enforcement authorities in Jackson County, West Virginia, to the wreckage of a missing experimental aircraft. They found the pilot seriously injured but alive.
The West Virginia Mission
The experimental aircraft had been reported missing at 3 a.m. Aug. 16 following a local flight from Jackson County Airport the previous day. Team CAP members Lt. Col. Mark Young and 1st Lt. Joe Ashworth started analyzing the data. The departure date and time in the alert was incorrect, so Ashworth started looking back in time. There was no ADS-B data for the aircraft so raw radar data was used.
“This was a local flight from Jackson County Airport,” said Lt. Col. John Henderson, the CAP radar team’s commander. “Joe found a suspicious track from Saturday afternoon that had no valid Mode-C, so there was no altitude data on the aircraft. But the parameters matched what we are looking for.”
The team passed a tracking location map to AFRCC, which passed it back to local law enforcement authorities who went to the area and found the wreckage. The pilot survived the crash with neck and back injuries and had to be extricated from the aircraft. He was trapped under the aircraft.
“This mission really highlights NRAT’s capabilities, for it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. This one had a happy ending, unfortunately most do not.”
The pilot was the only person on board this experimental aircraft, believed to have crashed not long after taking off from Jackson County Airport during the afternoon of Aug. 15. The pilot survived the accident but had to be extricated from the wreckage.
This map from the CAP radar team, provided within 10 minutes of the call from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, showed the whole track of the Black Hawk and helped authorities find the downed Army helicopter in the Colorado mountains near Denver.
The Colorado Mission
The Black Hawk was easier to find, though it was not transmitting ADS-B data either. As a result, Henderson, Young, and Ashworth had to use raw radar data and their improved low-altitude tracking tools to locate the crash site. But they did so within 10 minutes of the call from AFRCC, again passing on a search area map for local law enforcement authorities to use.
“The helicopter was found very close to our last radar/track hit. All four crew members survived.”
The AFRCC formally recognized the CAP radar team with a “save” for its West Virginia response, acknowledging the team’s role in preserving life. Four more saves were credited to the team for its Colorado response.
This aerial photo shows the severely damaged Army helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The Black Hawk went down on the east side of Thorodin Mountain in Gilpin County, just outside of Denver, during a training exercise. All four soldiers on board.
That makes two more lifesaving missions for the CAP radar team, which can be rare in search and rescue missions involving aircraft. Of the nearly 1,100 missing aircraft missions the team has participated in since its formation in 2009, over 650 of the aircraft have been found but only 114 saved lives have been recorded.
Henderson emphasized the importance of speed in such missions: “The time from notification to rescue is what saves lives,” he said. “Our team can usually deliver actionable data within minutes.”
Interested in Emergency Services?
Civil Air Patrol is the official civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, supporting search and rescue efforts nationwide, including Alaska and Hawaii with assets that include the world’s largest fleet of single-engine aircraft dedicated to emergency services but also technological assets like those provided by the National Radar Analysis Team.
The team’s 10 members have Air Force and FAA backgrounds and are equipped with accurate radar, ADS-B, uAvionix ADS-B, and real-time weather data and other analysis products. They provide their forensic services at no cost as CAP volunteers.
