Montana Wing Save in Petroleum County
by Major Bob Burns
Call from AFRCC came out 0340. Sage was airborne at 0630 on his way to LWT to pickup Betty Williams. She or Rich were the preferred MOs since they know the area well. Launched Steve Balsom out of GTF at 0845 with Jeff Liston to relieve the crew in 9CA. Steve and Jeff in 2CP, so this was an all glass cockpit mission.
Mission was to assist the Petroleum County Sheriff in locating a ranch hand that had not been seen since 8 am the day before. We had coordinates of the 4-wheeler the ground team had found.
Both aircraft were on scene searching or acting as high bird, when the subject of the search was found about 1030. He was resting under a tree and was somewhat dehydrated. He was found by a ground party on horseback.
AFRCC awarded MT Wing a SAVE, since we were part of the team involved in the search.
We flew 8.0 hours, with 3.2 in the search area. Total of 5 personnel involved, 4 in the air and one on the ground.
