Re: JFK Missing -- Coverage

[Brian Vita <brian_vita@cssinc.com>]

At 11:16 PM 7/18/99 -0400, A. Joseph Ross wrote:
>On 18 Jul 99,  Brian Vita wrote:
>
> > Yes, the Civil Air Patrol and several volunteer pilots groups did most of
> > the searching.  I don't recall the Air Force being called in.
>
>It was mentioned in one of yesterday's news conferences that the Air Force
>unit that is involved is one whose mission is search and rescue.

The Civil Air Patrol is under the "wing" of the of and technically a unit 
of the Air Force.  It is a paramilitary civilian organization that is 
organized similarly to the Air Force and under their watchful eye.  It is a 
sort of ROTC for them.  The Air Force does maintain search and rescue units 
but it is primarily the CAP that would conduct searches such as 
these.  That is a primary objective in their charter.  Check out their website.

>It
>routinely conducts search and rescue in the United States and helps with
>search and rescue operations in Canada.  The Coast Guard also routinely
>looks for anyone lost at sea, often dedicating considerable resources to
>do so.

When a fishing boat is overdue or a general aviation aircraft goes down, 
they don't generally start pulling research vessels out to do sonar 
searches or helicopters to do IR scans.  Perhaps when a ferry or an 
airliner goes down they would.

Brian Vita

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