HSC-15 Search and Rescue Team Saves a Life

By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman (SW) Matthew A. Carlyle

PACIFIC OCEAN (NNS) -- USS CARL VINSON, At sea (June 5, 2014) -- The Red Lions of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 15 performed a search and rescue (SAR) mission after an F/A-18E Super Hornet made an emergency crash landing in the ocean June 4.

The USS Carl Vinson SAR team recovered the pilot after he ejected from the aircraft prior to the aircraft impacting the water. The team was in the helicopter providing routine over-watch during night flight operations when they got the call that there was a man in the water. A call they are well trained to respond to but hoped would never come.

That's when Naval Aircrewman (Helicopter) 3rd Class (AW) Aaron Perez, the rescue swimmer who executed the rescue, knew his first rescue mission had arrived.

"As soon as I started getting dressed out, I got really nervous," said Perez, a 25-year-old native of Corpus Christi, Texas. "I didn't want to mess anything up; this is what you train for. We have people who have been in 20 years and never had a rescue so I thought to myself, 'This is it.'"

With the helicopter positioned over the pilot, Perez was lowered in full SAR swimmer gear and quickly began using the training he learned at SAR school in Pensacola, Florida.

"Once I got in the water, it all came back to me," Perez said. "First, I talked to the pilot to let him know what the plan was and that we were going to get him out of there as soon as possible. Then I pulled him out of his raft, disentangled him, and signaled for the rescue litter. The rescue litter came down and I got him all strapped in. I hooked him up and gave the thumbs up to my crew chief so he knew to pull him out of the water."

After Perez was recovered from the water, he talked with the F/A-18 pilot as the helicopter made its way back to Carl Vinson.

"I just kept talking to the pilot, asking him how he was doing," Perez said. "He said he was fine, just cold. By the time we got a blanket on him, we were already touching down on the carrier. Then corpsmen rushed in to grab him."

Perez admitted that he was impressed by how composed the pilot was in spite of the dangerous circumstances and attributed the mission's success to how well both parties employed the training they had received for these emergency situations.

"When I got to him in the water, he was just lying in his raft, with his hands on his flotation, just waiting," Perez recalled. "He was very calm and cooperative. It made it really easy. Our training helped us out a lot because we both knew exactly what to do and how to help each other."

That's why the Navy motto "train like you fight" never rang more true than that night, when a potential disaster was calmly contained through prompt and skillful execution.

"It felt huge because we train a lot, for a lot of different things, that some people don't ever get to do," Perez said. "It really felt good to get to use it to help that pilot."

Carl Vinson is underway conducting a Joint Task Force Exercise (JTEFX) off the coast of Southern California.