Elkland Search and Rescue 

On Saturday night at 10:40 pm Dec. 30th, Elkland SAR was dispatched for a missing airplane in the Buzzard Swamps Area near Marienville Pa in Forest County. The requesting agency was the Pa State Police Marienville Pa. Barracks. The Marienville Vol. Fire Dept. was also on scene to assist.

The first obstacle to overcome was the very limited access road into the area and then establishing a Command Post to accommodate the needed resources for a situation of this magnitude. Once the Command Post was established, the incoming information was analyzed by the Command Post Staff and a plan was put into place to start the search. Elkland’s Drone was launched and foot grid teams were sent into the general location to search the area.

Foot grid teams were hampered by the swamp and had to continually adjust their paths of travel to go around impassable wetlands in the dark. If that wasn’t enough to hamper search efforts, when not in water, the searchers were dealing with extremely thick vegetation situations. ATV and UTV teams searched open fields and also tried to locate trails to gain access to the desired search areas.

Around 4am, foot grid search teams were removed from the field for safety reasons and the foot search efforts scaled back until daylight. During this time, searchers returned to Elkland’s rehab trailer and vehicles to get some downtime until daylight. During this time, the Command Staff was working to analyze fresh incoming data from the Air Force, and used this information to write additional search plans. Around 7am, and before daylight, team members were again moving around the Command Post area, eating and hydrating for the first tasks of the day.

The drone, was again launched from the Command Post and worked its way towards an area that wasn’t previously searched from the air the night before. Within a short time of this flight, the airplane was located. This position was immediately communicated to the Command Post so a search team could get to the site as soon as possible. The drone continued to scan the area of the airplane for any indication of the pilot and also worked to establish a walkway for the searchers to access the crash area quickly.

Hasty teams of searchers and the Pa State Troopers worked their way to a better access location away from the Command Post at the suggestion of the drone pilot. With the drone overhead, leading the team of searchers and Pa State Troopers, they proceeded to the crash site.

Just before entering the crash site, the searchers stopped and the Pa StateTroopers took control of the scene for investigation purposes of the site.

At this time, Elkland Search and Rescue offers our Condolences to the Family, Friends and Acquaintances of the Pilot. This wasn’t the outcome we were hoping and praying for.

There were many other agencies involved with this search. Some of those agencies include:

Pa Emergency Management Agency(PEMA) Forest County EMA, Forest County Coroner’s Office, Air Force Civil Air Patrol, National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center. I’m sure, there are others that I am unintentionally overlooking.

Elkland Sar responded with 11 members and all of our equipment. Elkland Sar was back in service at 1:30 pm Sunday afternoon, Dec. 31st.

Respectfully Submitted by,

John Feldbauer

Chief of Elkland SAR