Fairchild copters ‘vitally important’

Washington’s congressional delegation is trying to head off the potential loss of a military helicopter unit at Fairchild Air Force Base that does double duty on civilian rescues.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have all written letters to the Pentagon questioning a possible relocation of the 36th Rescue Flight, a 30-person unit with four helicopters assigned to the Air Force Survival School at the base.

Although the squadron’s main purpose involves work with air crews attending their required survival training at the school, it also has been involved in more than 600 civilian rescues throughout the region since it came to Fairchild in 1973. They’ve been called for everything from finding lost hikers to transporting mothers who have gone into labor in remote locations.

During one week in January, helicopter crews from the 36th rescued a father and son who had become stranded north of Sandpoint when their snowmobiles were disabled, and helped transport a woman who broke her leg in a snowmobile crash near Wallace.

Congressional offices have been told that President Bush’s fiscal 2008 budget, due to arrive on Capitol Hill tomorrow, will propose moving the helicopters off the 36th to other bases, and reassigning the military personnel.

The proposed move is not connected to the recommendations of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which reviewed military units around the country in 2005 and left active-duty Air Force operations at Fairchild mainly intact.

Congressional offices began hearing as early as last summer that Bush’s upcoming budget would cut about $3.9 million from the 36th at Fairchild, but no official announcement has been made and the Pentagon has not confirmed those plans.

“I don’t have anything releasable on that at this time,” said Dave Smith, spokesman for the Air Education Training Command, the office to which the Survival School reports. “There’s been a lot of speculation … and I don’t do speculation.”

Murray and Cantwell wrote a letter to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in September saying the helicopter unit is “vitally important” to the Survival School and involved in the rescue of 15 to 20 civilians a year.

“As the Air Force moves forward with its budgetary process for fiscal year 2008, we express our support for the mission of the Fairchild Survival School generally and for the 36th Rescue Flight specifically,” they wrote.

McMorris Rodgers sent a similar letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne in January, noting that the unit’s helicopters are needed to evacuate an average of three Survival School students each year who are injured during training and to locate more than 90 students who become lost.

The unit’s helicopters, UH-N1 Hueys with vertical hoists and night vision equipment, have capabilities that civilian law enforcement aircraft don’t have, she added.

“It’s nothing that has been settled,” Jill Strait, a spokeswoman for McMorris Rodgers, said recently. “We’re currently trying to discourage the Air Force” from moving the unit.

So far, Pentagon officials have responded with brief letters thanking the delegation for its interest and promising to work with them.

Congressional staff will have to study the president’s proposed budget before knowing if the Air Force wants to move the helicopter squadron. But that would merely be the first step, because the budget is subject to congressional approval.

“It’s definitely not the end,” said Alex Glass, a spokeswoman for Murray.

Murray sits on the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee, which decides where money is spent on the military. McMorris Rodgers sits on the House Armed Services Committee, which decides what military programs get approval.

Both plan to object to moving the helicopters and personnel away from Fairchild, staff said.