Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Jorge Saucedo | A crew man with Helicopter Mine Countermeasure Squadron 15 directions an army...... read more read more
WARBAH ISLAND, Kuwait - More than a dozen U.S. Navy and Navy helicopter and air crew, Army medics and Coast Guard Port Security personnel recently worked together to transport and replace a broken backup generator via helicopter from Behaith Marine Location to Warbah Island, Kuwait, April 11.
The U.S. military forces helped move the 7,700 pound generator, which will become the backup power source for the largely uninhabited military outpost on Warbah Island a few miles off the coast of Kuwait. Warbah Island is greatly affected by the tides and sea surface conditions making removal and transport by surface craft impractical. The U.S. Navy had the only helicopters available with the necessary lift capability to perform the mission on time.
The two generators at the Warbah Island facility had been in operation since the early 1990s and the U.S. military enthusiastically accepted the opportunity to provide assistance to assist the Kingdom of Kuwait. The operation also helped facilitate joint interoperability training between U.S. forces in the area.
According to Navy Lt. Dave Zerda of Mine Countermeasures Squadron Fifteen who flew the MH-53E Sea Dragon used in the mission, the generator move gave all services involved an opportunity to learn new skills by experiencing how each service executes different missions following service specific procedures.
"The way the Army grounds crew operates is a little different than ours, so working together gives us all an opportunity to accomplish a joint mission by learning tactics and techniques from each other," said the Houston, Texas, native.
Two helicopters were used during the mission; one helicopter transferred the ground crew to the pickup site at a nearby access road, while the other transported the generator.
Master Sgt. Thomas Odoardi, the Army non-commissioned officer-in-charge in charge of the mission, said the challenge for the ground crew was to obtain the proper sling load set to rig the generator properly.
"A non-standard load means there are no text book standards as there are with many other lifts," he said. "For this project we had to gather our own data and use our experience to determine exactly what sling set to use to safely move the generator."
Training for the mission took place at Camp Buehring Army Air Field in Kuwait, before the actual operation occurred. Several pilots and co-pilots practiced lifting a 2,800 pound concrete barrier before lifting the actual 7,700 pound generator.
An Army and Coast Guard team of rigging crews also practiced their signals and safety procedures while communicating with the helicopter pilots to ensure the two components were able to operate in unison.
During the actual generator lift, Kuwaiti Naval Forces pre-positioned the backup generator on Behaith Marine access road. The rigging crew then worked together to attach the sling load to the MH-53 Sea Dragon, which was flown to the drop site at Warbah Island where the derigging crew recovered the sling set.
Army Sgt. First Class Arnold Rabanal, a native of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, was new to this type of training evolution. "Field Artillery units seldom do air assault missions, so it was fun," he said. "It gets us away from the everyday norm and allows us to cross-train. I was excited to do this and am glad it was a successful mission,"
The MH-53E Sea Dragon used in the mission normally functions as an airborne mine countermeasures platform with its secondary mission as external lift and vertical on-board delivery. HM-15 is forward deployed to Bahrain and is home ported at Naval Air Station Corpus Christie, Texas.
Kuwaiti Naval Force maintains outposts on Warbah Island, in the maritime border region between Kuwait and Iraq. The outpost was originally constructed as a UN facility in the early 1990s.
| Date Taken: | 04.11.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 05.21.2009 03:16 |
| Story ID: | 33883 |
| Location: | WARBAH ISLAND, KW |
| Web Views: | 158 |
| Downloads: | 121 |
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