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Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

qcnews.com

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Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#81

Post by jquery »

lukan wrote: post #72
jquery wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is written with an obvious slant, from the perspective of a guy who decided to go to the media to bash first responders after being asked to coordinate via proper channels. I would take anything he said with a huge grain of salt.

"I would take anything he said with a huge grain of salt." I do and I did not like that reporting, but if the facts are somewhat right, the arrest threat from wanting to at least still pick up his left behind son is way over the line, of anything reasonable.

Is it? He was simply told not to fly in that area anymore. Either his son was fine in which case no big deal, or his son wasn't fine in which case he was creating more people who needed to be rescued.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#82

Post by _djo_ »

shakow wrote: post #55
_djo_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was deployed, it sounds like he just wasn't aware of it. For instance, the Carolina Emergency Response Team was coordinating private helicopter assistance from Hickory airport.

AFAICT from TFA, it looks like this cell could only have been active from Sept. 30th, as it was when the no-flight zone was removed. IIUC, the guy started its stuff the 28th, and the incident happened the 29th.

The cell was active before, CERT is assisting it, not replacing it. The article doesn't provide the necessary background information on when it started operations, only when the subject of the article became aware of it.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#83

Post by voidUpdate »

fleabagmange wrote: post #80
voidUpdate wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would your reaction be if someone showed up to your place of work and just started trying to do things how they thought they should be done, ignoring the proper channels and now knowing any of the procedures?

It’s not a place of work. It’s America. It’s also a disaster zone beyond anything some keyboard warriors need be pontificating on. Ive personally had to deliver diesel into Asheville to rescue family with a two month old over the weekend. You might see some nice PR photos coming out from the last day or two of Chinooks and cargo drops but at the time this incident occurred, there was nothing going on out there. If yo…

It is the place of work of the disaster recovery people, who have established communication channels and procedures. If there is literally nobody coming to help you, then it may be reasonable to go ahead and do it yourself, but it feels incredibly unwise to do it if there are already people trying to do things

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#84

Post by probably_wrong »

lukan wrote: post #57
nrjames wrote: post #41

I've spent a significant amount of time working in disaster response. In the US (and probably elsewhere), you have "Disaster Cowboys." These are people who are untrained but fancy they know better how to do things than people who have spent their lives training for these types of scenarios. Picture 1000 people showing up with their pickups and John boats following Hurricane Katrina. Or, imagine the Coast Guard conduc…

"It is desperately unfair to them when somebody untrained, with a "cowboy" attitude, shows up and flips the script. " Those rescued by the cowboys did not expressed that. Sure, everyone prefers the professionals to show up, but if they don't, because they are overwhelmed by the situation, I surely would be glad, if an "cowboy" comes instead to pick me up. Troublemakers in search for attention are to be kept away for…

> Those rescued by the cowboys did not expressed that

Probably, but that's literal survivorship bias: those who died due to a badly-performed search have nothing to say.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#85

Post by fleabagmange »

traceroute66 wrote: post #52
jdenning wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how should the pilot have known who to contact, if even the assistant fire chief wasn't aware of who was in charge of coordinating volunteers? I agree he was probably having a stressful day, but if his default response to stress is to threaten to put a man in a cage, then he should not have authority.

> So how should the pilot have known who to contact Part of your training as a pilot is learning how to find out about stuff going on in the area where you plan to fly and who to contact about flying in that area. If you don't know (or have forgotten) how to do that, you should not be flying a plane. Full stop. EDIT: For some reason I can't reply to to the commenter below who pasted "met with multiple law enforcement…

> If you don't know (or have forgotten) how to do that, you should not be flying a plane. Full stop.

I’m sure the victims on the ground have a different opinion, but thank you for chiming in on their behalf.

On defense of the Pilot, it’s awfully hard to coordinate with some random nobody power-tripping beaurocrat in a disaster area with no power, water, or standard communication in play.

As a reminder this occurred the day after the storm.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#86

Post by _djo_ »

kortilla wrote: post #59
_djo_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said elsewhere, I'm willing to cut those responders at the local level a bit of slack given that they're probably exhausted, overwhelmed, and not fully aware of all the parts of the response. That's why it's important to offer your services via the organisations/groups/etc set up for it, rather than finding the nearest local first responders.

People in authority get no slack when they start abusing power to flex without having a good reason. This dude just didn’t like being challenged.

When last did you run disaster response in any area for something of this scale?

Emergency and disaster response organisations always ask people not to just rock up and do their own thing, but to go via the correct channels when volunteering for help. It's not an ego thing.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#87

Post by oasisaimlessly »

voidUpdate wrote: post #77
exabrial wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the main problem is what? Control? 1000 people show up and your leadership skills or ego can handle it? Sure be embarrassing if they outdid the government, that’s for sure. How about this: get out of their way. Or even better: clear their paths. Or conduct your own operations and don’t worry about it.

What would your reaction be if someone showed up to your place of work and just started trying to do things how they thought they should be done, ignoring the proper channels and now knowing any of the procedures?

Bad analogy. If someone considers a disaster zone to be their personal fiefdom, they have a screw loose.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#88

Post by perihelions »

Reminds me of the themes in "How one ED mobilized his department during a mass casualty incident" (I only found this HN thread [0], but I think there were others). Their decisions went in opposite directions: that ER adapted to a disaster by decentralizing and diffusing responsibility, whereas this air traffic thing (if this story's accurate) insists on decisions flowing through central points of control–which are degrading under high workload.

(I'm *not* asserting if what the NC people are doing is necessarily wrong in context–I don't know enough about air-traffic control to know that).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247841

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#89

Post by _djo_ »

ekianjo wrote: post #58
_djo_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said elsewhere, I'm willing to cut those responders at the local level a bit of slack given that they're probably exhausted, overwhelmed, and not fully aware of all the parts of the response. That's why it's important to offer your services via the organisations/groups/etc set up for it, rather than finding the nearest local first responders.

> m willing to cut those responders at the local level a bit of slack Why don't you consider they may be incompetent as an option?

Without clear evidence of incompetence, why would I prioritise that option? The official's actions make sense in terms of existing and normal regulations and practices in disasters.

Also, if you don't want to deal with local fire chiefs who don't know everything about the air operations, maybe don't approach them first and instead approach the actual units and organisations that are coordinating the air response.

Re: Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

#90

Post by fleabagmange »

_djo_ wrote: post #48
jdenning wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how should the pilot have known who to contact, if even the assistant fire chief wasn't aware of who was in charge of coordinating volunteers? I agree he was probably having a stressful day, but if his default response to stress is to threaten to put a man in a cage, then he should not have authority.

He should've approached the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, perhaps: https://www.scemd.org/recover/volunteer-and-donate/ Or contacted one of the organisations listed here: https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4829

He was an S.C. Pilot flying into NC, and for what it’s worth the area he was flying supplies into was, to put it in desktop GUI terms

CTRL-A and CTRL-SHIFT-DELETE

All the people clamoring to defend the lame fire chief against the defend just don’t get it.

This a world-class disaster area and if someone is willing to risk their own safety to get supplies to people in imminent threat of perishing themselves… that’s a good thing. Life isn’t a 0-risk game, and definitely not in an insane disaster area.

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