The joint training between the Armed Forces, Armed Forces Corps and State agencies continues without interruption for the search and rescue exercise in Molise. The work of the Grifone 2018 team continues, the international search and rescue exercise organized by the Air Force and begun last Monday 24 September. Three days after the start of the activities, there have been about 50 sorties, eight of which were at night, for a total of about 30 hours of flight. The Armed Forces, Armed Forces Corps and State agencies are thus facing different scenarios, from simulations of aeronautical accidents to the search for missing persons in the wooded areas of the Matese, training to deploy their assets in a synergistic and controlled manner. Therefore, the flight crews and the ground rescue teams are working tirelessly, which has already been made even more difficult by the sudden drop in temperatures and strong gusts of wind from yesterday. This latter discomfort was immediately transformed into an additional training opportunity in a more realistic training environment. Search and rescue constitute the primary objectives of Grifone. However, these must be complemented by the other important activities that revolve around it. Therefore, we work together to standardize both investigative procedures, which are fundamental in tracing the causes leading to an aircraft accident, and flight safety-related actions, namely the measures to be implemented in a preventive manner to minimize the risk of an accident.
The Grifone exercise has been organized by the Air Force since international cooperation agreements in the field of research and aerial rescue were established. Until 1998, the exercise only concerned the geographical area of central and northern Italy; however, with the reorganization of the Air Force’s departments and the establishment of a single Operations Command based in Poggio Renatico (FE), Grifone has also been organized in areas of southern Italy. Originally, the exercise was structured into two distinct phases: a SATER phase (land search and rescue event) and a SAMAR phase (sea search and rescue event); with the redistribution of responsibilities regarding sea search and rescue, Grifone has become an exclusively SATER exercise since 2007.
