Combat Aircraft – August 2019

SUCCESS

STORIES

Since kicking off well over a year ago,

Operation ‘Guardian Support’ has

resulted in hundreds of apprehensions

that either might not have happened,

or would have happened with

considerably more risk or difficulty.

The following are brief examples of the

kinds of results the national guard is

enabling through aviation support to

the US Border Patrol:

• June 5, 2018: Responding to a 911
  call, a UH-72 crew (two pilots, a crew
  chief, and a border patrol agent/
  medic) located two illegal immigrants
  who had been walking through the
  desert for five days and had run out of
  food and water, with the Customs and
  Border Patrol (CBP) agent providing
  medical care on-scene. Once the
  medical issues were addressed, the
  pair were taken into custody and
  flown to Tucson for processing.
  
  
  • September 6, 2018: Five undocumented
    aliens (UDAs) and one smuggler were
    arrested near Sasabe, Arizona, when
    the driver of a sport utility vehicle made
    an abrupt U-turn south of a checkpoint
    along a state highway, with the driver
    letting all five passengers out to run out
    into the desert. A Black Hawk assigned
    to OGS happened to be in the area, with
    the crew seeing the UDAs attempting
    to flee on foot. The pilot landed to
    disembark a mobile response team
    that tracked down all five migrants and
    apprehended them safely.
  
  
  • October 3-10, 2018: Over the course of
    one week the crew of an Air National
    Guard RC-26B used the aircraft’s sensors
    to locate 33 UDAs, who were then
    apprehended by border patrol agents
    vectored to the site by the aircraft’s
    sensor operator.
  
  
  • February 23-24, 2019: ‘Guardian
    Support’ Black Hawks and Lakotas
    assisted in the apprehension of 75 UDAs
    over the course of a weekend, including
    many wearing camouflage hunting
    clothes and traveling in rugged areas to
    decrease the likelihood of being caught.
  
  
  
  

of seized narcotics, while the AS350s are

employed for surveillance, patrol, and

light utility work. Under OGS, ARNG Black

Hawk crews are performing the same

missions as their CBP counterparts, while

the Lakotas are handling missions similar

to the A-Stars.

Lakotas on guard

The bulk of the US Army’s UH-72 Lakotas

are operated by the ARNG, which acquired

the type to replace the Bell OH-58 Kiowa

and UH-1 ‘Huey’ in the scout and utility/

medevac roles, respectively. As a relatively

unmodified variant of the civilian EC145,

the Lakota lacks many of the features

common to deployable, combat-tasked

airframes — it doesn’t have a defensive

countermeasures system and has no

provision for forward-firing or crew-

served weapons. Accordingly, it is the

ARNG’s go-to helicopter for domestic

support missions.

The ARNG operates three sub-variants

of the UH-72A. The least modified is the

‘slick’, with a standard cabin configured for

movement of passengers and light cargo.

The ARNG also flies a medevac variant of

the Lakota, equipped with a hoist and a

cabin configured for litters and medics.

The final variant is the mission equipment

package (MEP) UH-72A, which has been

modified to carry an L3 Wescam MX-15

sensor turret and a ‘Night Sun’ searchlight,

with a terminal for operating both inside

the rear cabin.

Describing the traditional role of MEP

Lakotas, SSgt Chris Flodder, an Indiana

ARNG UH-72 crew chief deployed to Silver

Bell Army Airfield in southern Arizona for

OGS, told Combat Aircraft, ‘Our [typical]

mission-essential tasks are service and

support. Essentially what we do is provide

a platform for local and federal law

enforcement agencies, whether it’s FBI

[Federal Bureau of Investigation], DEA

[Drug Enforcement Agency], or state

troopers. It’s kind of the same aspect

here working with border patrol. We’re

operating our camera systems and our

Night Sun.’ Additionally, ARNG MEP

Lakotas have been used in domestic

search and rescue (SAR) operations, such

as when the Nebraska ARNG UH-72s

deployed to Florida in the aftermath of

Hurricane ‘Irma’ in 2017, using the aircraft’s

sensors to locate survivors in flooded areas

and to co-ordinate rescues.

For ‘Guardian Support’, ARNG MEP

Lakotas are being used mostly for what

the border patrol calls ‘aerial support’,

which is effectively a combination of

reconnaissance plus command and

control. As Indiana ARNG UH-72 pilot CW3

Andrew Orr explained, ‘A lot of times [...]

a sensor will trip and give us information

on where there are UDAs on a particular

part of the border. We’ll go forward to try

and spot these guys, and then we’ll call in

Black Hawks or someone else with MRT

teams aboard.’

Busy Black Hawks

For OGS, the Black Hawk is the border

patrol’s interdiction and logistics

workhorse. CBP agent Hernandez

commented, ‘You’re going to be able to

put agents on top of a mountain to effect

Above left to right:

A crew from the

Missouri Army

National Guard,

accompanied

by a US Border

Patrol agent,

walk to their

waiting UH‑72

Lakota prior

to a ‘Guardian

Support’ mission.

CBP/Lu Maheda

A Lakota crew

chief from the

South Carolina

Army National

Guard scans the

ground below

for signs of UDA

activity near

McAllen, Texas.

ARNG/SSgt

Roberto Di Giovine

1st LT Eric

Escobedo, a Black

Hawk pilot with

the Arizona ARNG,

flies in an area

near Nogales,

Arizona. US Army/

SFC Jon Soucy

An agent from a

mobile response

team jumps

from a hovering

Black Hawk at

the beginning of

a patrol mission

close to Sasabe,

Arizona.

CBP/Lu Maheda

OPS REPORT // ‘GUARDIAN SUPPORT’

60 August 2019 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

58-62 Guardian C.indd 60 21/06/2019 12:59