Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Members of the committee, I do have a short presentation, and I will accompany the presentation with a few charts. I'll refer to the charts when I wish to draw your attention to them.
As was mentioned by the chairman, I was asked to speak today about the aeronautical search and rescue posture. I will start with a brief presentation, as I mentioned.
The Canadian Forces mandate is the provision of aeronautical search and rescue services and the effective operation of a coordinated aeronautical and maritime SAR system, which is a federal responsibility.
I'd draw your attention to slide 2. The national area of responsibility is some 15 million square kilometres, extending east and west, by international convention, to the oceanic boundaries between adjacent nations, south along the recognized border with the U.S., and up to the North Pole. As you can see from the chart, the regions therefore include vast regions of diverse terrain, sparsely settled land mass, and an enormous region of oceanic approach.
As chart 3 shows, the CF operates three joint rescue coordination centres located in Victoria, Trenton, and Halifax. These centres are co-manned by the Canadian Forces and the Canadian Coast Guard. As the name implies, the mission of these centres is to coordinate the SAR response to incidents that entail tasking of the most appropriate resource to provide the best response. Depending on the nature and location of the incident, the task asset may not be a CF aircraft or a coast guard vessel; it may be a vessel of opportunity or a commercial vessel or aircraft.
On slide 4, the primary SAR resources are shown as based in various locations throughout Canada. They are held on an alert status on a continual basis.
The next slide depicts the number of aircraft we use in the SAR system. All of these aircraft are capable of aerial delivery and are crewed with SAR technicians who are medically trained and equipped for such diverse tasks as parachute jumps, mountain climbing, diving, as well as treatment of seriously injured and distressed people.
In the CF readiness posture, we maintain a minimum state of readiness for each rescue squadron. There will be one aircraft of each type on 30 minutes' standby during working hours and two hours during all other times. Commanders of the rescue coordinating centres may realign the SAR standby periods so that they coincide with the periods of greatest SAR activity, particularly during the summer months. When this occurs, units must continue to provide 30-minute SAR standby for each aircraft for a minimum of 40 hours a week.
When crews are at the hangar, in normal working hours, there is an expectation that 30 minutes represents the maximum reasonable time to get the aircraft airborne once notified by rescue coordinating centres. This expectation implies a rapid mission analysis of flight planning—normally of less than 10 minutes—and an unimpeded aircraft start, taxi, and takeoff that should be done within 10 minutes.
During quiet hours, crews maintain an alert posture within the local defined area or at home. The reasonable expectation then becomes two hours instead of 30 minutes. It is recognized that it takes longer to respond from home, especially at night, when it becomes necessary to regain the cognitive skills needed to aptly process and digest information after being awakened.
There is an expectation for the CF SAR crews to react with the same high level of urgency in all cases. The only acceptable reasons for delay are those that are not within CF control, such as extreme weather, a mechanical failure, or multiple coincidental occurrences requiring privatization.
CF SAR crew performance regularly exceeds prescribed standards. A study of actual response time revealed that the true difference between the reaction times while on 30-minute posture as distinct from a two-hour posture was approximately 45 minutes. This is because within the 30 minutes, the crews normally get airborne after approximately 20 minutes and in a little over an hour on the two hours' standby, so that the difference really becomes 45 minutes.
The way we are able to function and structure ourselves, with the number of crews we have available, is that we normally select one crew to operate for a 24-hour period. The crew day will start at four o'clock and will be part of the two-hour routine, in which the crew may stay at home or be close to the squadron. For the 16 hours they will maintain that posture, and then they will return to the squadron to hold 30 minutes. So you'll get one crew working a 24-hour period. On the weekends, we actually use the same crew for the whole weekend, period, with the understanding that if it is a very active period of time and the crews are actively involved in a number of operations, we have a provision for backup crew, so we can sustain the standby posture in that regard.
I'd next draw your attention to chart 6. This is a chart worthy of some focus. It's the distress incident resolution timeline. When an incident occurs, it is imperative to reduce the overall resolution timeline by managing or avoiding delays that are within human control. This ultimately affords victims of SAR distress with the greatest opportunity for survival. The resolution timeline commences when an incident occurs and ends when SAR services are no longer required.
I will walk you through the phases.
The first phase, and probably the most significant, is called the notification phase.
When an incident occurs, it's important that the information of that incident be relayed to the rescue coordinating centre so that some response can be organized. This is sometimes almost in real time. If an aircraft, for instance, were in flight and reported to air traffic services that they had a distress, it would normally be relayed to our rescue coordinating centres. But sometimes there are long delays in notification, maybe because flight plans weren't properly filed or an aircraft is reported overdue long after it's supposed to have arrived. So there are a number of influential aspects in the notification phase.
In recent times, there are a number of methods that have improved notification time, the most significant of which is the introduction of the satellite-aided distress beacon, the 406 beacon. This provides very timely and accurate distress location information, which is fundamental to a speedy incident response.
The next thing you will see on the chart is the decision to act. When it's confirmed that there is a distress, our rescue coordinators make a determination of what the best response is to provide: is it a helicopter, a fixed-wing aircraft, or a local asset? It's usually a short decision cycle to make that happen.
When it is decided that a CF resource shall be used, we're into the reaction time. This is essentially the topic we're going to focus on a little bit today. It speaks to the time it takes from the notification of a search and rescue crew to the time an aircraft is actually airborne.
There are a number of ways to influence this particular period of time, and the readiness posture, whether it's half an hour or two hours, is certainly one of those factors. Another influence is how we prepare our aircraft to be on alert and ensure that they're properly equipped, fueled, and ready to be dispatched.
The transit time is the next thing you see on the chart. Again, this can be time-consuming, and it is of course a function of the location of the incident versus the location of the SAR resource and the speed of that SAR resource in getting there. The overall response time then becomes the summation of the reaction time when the crew were preparing for launch and actually flying to the incident site.
Next we talk about the search prosecution phase. It's not always the case that the information provided by RCCs will give you an exact, precise location of a vessel in distress or an aircraft in distress over land. Often it's required to go to the general area where the last mayday perhaps was reported and from there commence search operations, prior to the precise location of that incident.
This prosecution phase can take a short period of time or a long period of time. I will add again that with the introduction of the 406 beacon, with precise location we have found that our search activity and times have been greatly reduced, for those vessels and aircraft that are equipped with 406 beacons.
The rescue phase really involves the time it takes to get to the victims and retrieve them and get them on the way to a medical facility; this is called a recovery phase. In looking at the two-hour versus the half-hour posture, we did some research and studies of cases to determine what it would cost to move from a two-hour to a half-hour continuous posture, and we also had a look at what effects we would achieve; in other words, what improvements we would see in our overall success.
We'll continue to slide 7, which I think would be of help to you.
Defence Research and Development Canada conducted an analysis of the impact of response posture on SAR incident occurrences over a five-year period. They looked at almost 40,000 incidents to determine the statistical importance. When they went through and eliminated those instances that were not of a critical nature, the ones that had no influence over time, they determined that there were 1,054 critical incidents, with 2,700 lives at risk, that may have had some influence, depending on the posture. When they further analyzed the data, it was determined that there were nine incidents over the study period where CF posture was considered significant, both in the lives saved and when the lives were lost. Of these nine, only three occurred while the two-hour standby posture was held. Case review suggests that of the nine people who died during these three cases, six of them might have had an increased chance of survival if the aircraft was held on a 30-minute standby posture.
Amid the myriad of complex factors that influence the outcome of a SAR incident, it is important to note that the increase in probability of victim survival attributable purely to response posture is rather small. Thus, even in a 30-minute posture, it is highly unlikely that all six individuals in those incidents would have been saved.
The second aspect we looked at is the resource implications of a continuous 30-minute posture. The final chart summarizes what we've discovered there.
In 2008, the air force completed a study conducted to determine the level of effort, in cost and timeline, to achieve a continuous 30-minute posture. The study used the current SAR posture as a baseline. Nationally, we have eight aircraft—four rotary-wing and four fixed-wing—that are held on standby at all times. When tasked, they must be airborne within 30 minutes during normal working hours, and within two hours thereafter. The program, in total, is currently estimated at about $339 million per year.
Unlike the two-hour SAR posture where crews and technicians hold a recall standby away from the squadron, a 30-minute SAR posture requires the aircrew to remain on the flight line poised for launch. Enabling a consistent reaction capability with crews at the flight line on a 24/7 basis has a human resource bill in terms of additional aircrew, increased numbers of aircraft, maintenance requirements, and infrastructure upgrades. Estimates suggest that approximately 200 additional personnel, $380 million in capital cost, and an overall annual recurring cost of $200 million above current funding levels would be required to achieve a standard and sustainable continuous 30-minute readiness posture. The timeline to achieve this enhanced posture is difficult to estimate due to personnel demographics, but it would likely take six to eight years just to be able to train the additional individuals required to perform the SAR.
Our conclusion is that, based on the significant resources required to implement a continuous 30-minute posture that would only marginally improve SAR services, the additional personnel and financial costs outweigh the potential benefits. Statistical analysis demonstrates that an effective SAR posture is in place with the resources currently assigned.
With that, I will terminate my briefing and look forward to some questions.
