Mayor Peter Chirico often says our local military personnel are protecting the skies so we can sleep at night.
That was precisely the case on June 15 as staff at the Canadian Air Defence Sector (CADS), Air Operations Centre at 22 Wing were enforcing the air defence zone around the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta.
At 11 am (MDT), or 1 pm our time, they coordinated fighter jets to intercept a private, civilian plane that violated air restrictions and wasn’t responding to attempts to get into contact with them.
Capt. Adam Murray, Mission Crew Commander, says incursions to this level are rare occurrences.
“Definitely a tense situation,” he says. “But the reason we’re here 24/7, 365 days a year, most of that time is spent training and preparing for very, very short instances of actually executing what we have to do. It’s like flipping a switch for the Ops floor.”
Capt. Murray says after more aggressively trying to deter the pilot away from the centre point, they eventually used flares to get their attention.
“Ideally we’re trying to get it through that communication,” he says. “Just seeing the presence of fighter jets around the aircraft will usually have the pilot clue in that something they’re doing is probably not right, and they’ll start to work to follow our instructions. Using those flares is just part of the escalation in trying to get the attention of the pilot.”
Lieutenant Glenn Butler, the Controller in North Bay who was controlling the fighter jets over Kananaskis, echoes the ‘flipping a switch’ sentiment.
“It was go time,” he says. “Not to be cliche but training kicked in and it didn’t feel too much different from a normal training mission.”
Lt. Butler adds it was a team effort.
“The heart was beating a little bit faster,” he says. “But I think overall our teamwork and communication was very thorough and made things go smoothly even though this was the first time we’ve had to do this in a long time. It felt familiar, but a little bit of pressure knowing this was the first time I’ve done this personally in real life.”
Lt. Butler says knowing that the team in North Bay was able to have a positive impact on an international event feels great, as does knowing the community supports them too.
“The visibility we get from Armed Forces Day and then doing an event like this and having the positive feedback from the mayor and greater community, it feels really good knowing our actions don’t go unnoticed.”
Back to the June 15 incident, communications would eventually be established with the pilot, who then flew to Brooks, Alberta, where they were met by the RCMP.
