PHOTOS: HAI/DAN SWEET
Capt. Breanna Knutson,
commanding officer, USCG Sector North Bend, reviews mission risk-
assessment cards
that her crews must fill out before
conducting each mission.
his crew accessed the life raft. Te Coast Guard is working to reverse this mission-driven “we have to go out, we don’t have to come back” mindset. “We have a robust and committed safety management system within the Coast Guard, particularly within Coast Guard aviation,” says Rear Adm. Melvin Bouboulis, Coast Guard District 13 commander. “And I think it’s changed that [mindset] around. We took a real hard look at ourselves, I would say in the 2010 to ’15 time frame, maybe even earlier than that, 2007 to ’15, where we had a rash of mishaps that was a little surprising for us. And we looked hard at aviation and purposefully changed that philosophy.” Today, risk mitigation begins the minute a
Avionics Electrical
Technician First Class Tim Gigliotti, a flight
mechanic with Sector North Bend,
conducts a preflight inspection of the duty aircraft.
call comes into the sector’s command center. “We have cards that we follow with our [air] crews,” says Knutson. “Te boat stations do the same thing. And then when we check in on every mission with our command center, we report what our risk scores are.” Perhaps the largest variable for any rescue mission is the weather. Western Oregon is renowned for heavy, warm rains, long periods of gray cloud cover, and periodic winter storms with hurri- cane-strength winds. When the summer sun heats the interior of the state, additional fog is drawn off the ocean, lowering visibility. “In terms of the type of flying that we do, low-visibility situations that can happen in the blink of an eye” are unique
to North Bend and the Oregon coast, says Knutson. Consequently, the sector trains extensively for instrument flight, and per- sonnel appreciate the improved radar, avionics, and navigation equipment of the MH-65E, which add to crew comfort with the rapidly changing weather.
Scenario-Based Training Reduces Risk Personnel stationed at Sector North Bend routinely serve there four years, with senior officers rotating through in about three years. Te continuity of crews helps to further reduce risk because those in their second, third, and fourth years have already experienced many of the missions and have a transferable knowledge base to share with incoming personnel. Some personnel have the additional luxury of returning to the area. Knutson was assigned to the sector early in her career, and she has now come back as the com- manding officer. Scenario-based training therefore plays a large role in
preparation, risk management, and aircraft-rescue coordi- nation. Planning for potential risks provides personnel the opportunity to consider multiple options before conducting the mission. “We’re lucky here because we have a command center,” says Knutson. “Not every air station has a command center located with it. But because we’re also a sector, we have a command center. We can go into the command center
28 ROTOR DECEMBER 2022
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