First responder

Soon after the earthquake – which ultimately claimed over 1000 lives – had struck, the ADF had formed Joint Task Force 629 to provide assistance to the Indonesian authorities. On the morning of October 2 a RAAF C-130H deployed to Padang via Jakarta carrying the forward elements of the Joint Task Force headquarters plus a 10 man Army engineer reconnaissance team and a RAAF health assessment team. Later that day the first C‑17 mission, carrying an ADF medical team and a 44 man urban search and rescue team from Brisbane departed from Amberley.

Soon two C-130s settled into flying supplies between Jakarta/Halim and Padang, while other C-17 flights delivered an Army water purification plant (capable of generating 200,000 litres of water a day), and an ADF Primary Health Care Team and forward elements from the 1st Health Support Battalion.

“The C-17s pretty much did the insert, and then were onto other business, and then the C-130s continued to do a tactically efficient move,” shuttling between Jakarta and Padang, Commander Air Lift Group, Air Commodore John Oddie, told Australian Aviation.

One of the aircraft captains on those early C-130 flights, including the first flight into Padang on October 2, was FLTLT Neil Bowen, a C-130H QFI with 285SQN.

“The first few days were single flights into Padang but there was a lot of waiting around (in Halim) waiting for loads to arrive and be constructed,” FLTLT Bowen told AA.

“It wasn’t that we had a shortage of things to move, it was more a factor of putting the loads together,” FLTLT Bowen continued. “For that, because our air load team was already deployed into Padang itself we had not a great deal of support initially in Halim for us to build the loads, so the loadmaster onboard my crew was supervising a lot of that. ” During the early stages facilities on the ground in Padang were also limited for RAAF personnel.

“We crammed our operations, logistics, administration and communication elements into this one room,” WGCDR Bill Kourelakos, deputy commander JTF629 Air Component, told Air Force News.

“Eventually we expanded into a carport area where we could set up logistics, administration, a passenger lounge, welfare area, crew rest area, crew rations storage, brew point (refreshment area), laundry drop off and medical section. ” The airport itself was left relatively unscathed by the earthquake, with the main capacity constraint for relief flights into Padang being air traffic control landing slots.

“If you missed a slot time they tended to not know how to deal with that, and tried to get you to wait for a later slot time,” FLTLT Bowen said.

“From the second day we had a local TNI military liaison flying with us, and that was hugely beneficial. ” By the end of the first week, the RAAF C-130s had lifted over 230 tonnes of emergency aid and equipment. Around 110 RAAF personnel, from aircrews to air lift teams, were directly involved in Padang Assist efforts. Both Jakarta based C-130s typically operated two flights a dayto Padang, while the air load teams were also involved in unloading foreign military and civilian charter aircraft and terminal management.

“Two flights a day was comfortable for us to do with our crew duty day, assuming there weren’t any significant delays,” said FLTLT Bowen. “You’d be looking at an 8. 3.

8. 4 hour (flying) day, assuming the weather wasn’t catastrophically bad, with about a five hour round trip in total. Two hours up, a good solid hour on the ground, and then the two hour transit back. ” In total, by the time the ADF’s relief operations in Padang wound up at the end of the month, the RAAF had airlifted over 530 tonnes of aid and equipment and over 800 passengers.

“I think that a key part of the challenge in many of these things is that many of the international aid agencies don’t necessarily have the capacity to take material all the way forward, they need someone in country to do that,” AIRCDRE Oddie said.

Padang Assist again meant the C-17 was at the forefront of a disaster relief operation.

In the past the RAAF was reliant on its large fleet C-130s, which were limited in payload and speed, meaning it took time and used up crew hours to deploy to a location such as Sumatra, and a forward support base, normally at Darwin, would need to be established.

“With the advent of the C-17 we’re able to step over Darwin to some extent, and go straight to the point of effect,” said AIRCDRE Oddie. “And what that means, particularly in the deployment phase where you need air to get in quickly, the C-17 gets you there quickly, and you can get more quickly up to speed using more efficient techniques. ” For Padang Assist that meant the C‑17s could fly in with forklifts, pallets and strapping necessary to begin effective airlift operations much more quickly, whereas in the early days of the Sumatra tsunami airlift response the RAAF C-130s were loaded and unloaded by hand.

But it is not just equipment changes that has improved the ADF’s ability to respond to disasters. “The joint operations arrangements and the development of the Air Mobility Control Centre has matured to a large extent, and what that means is that while we had very good integration between air mobility as a joint effect and the wider joint operational command campaign in the past, we’ve gone another step in maturity beyond that in my mind. The level of integration between joint effects and air mobility effects now is better, and I think that will continue to evolve. ” Being prepared to respond at short term notice to disaster relief efforts is also a key part of Air Lift Group’s culture, said AIRCDRE Oddie.

“At Air Lift Group we are always postured to be successful in the event that a ‘first response’ requirement is needed from us, so we naturally posture ourselves to be thinking about what we need to do,” AIRCDRE Oddie explained. “Our crews are qualified to do these jobs, that’s one of our basic qualifications. In terms of training our people we make sure they’re thinking about what would happen if you’re on a mission and you’re called up to do this or that. ” At the planning level, both at the Air Mobility Control Centre and within the wing headquarters, that posturing includes being aware of what capabilities could be offered for disaster relief while planning for more routine airlift and training flights.

“We’re always planning to deliver a mission but understanding what opportunity that creates for other services (such as relief missions),” said AIRCDRE Oddie. “So it’s basically more of a behaviour rather than a commitment of resources, a level of understanding and a sense of flexibility in terms of understanding our world. ” Then once personnel and aircraft are committed to a relief operation, Air Lift Group begins to focus on the ‘opportunity cost’ of those flights – ie training flights delayed and loads not carried for other ‘customers’.

“We can draw down on (our resources) rapidly for a peak period, and that’s what you saw to a large extent in the early phase of Padang Assist, and then as the mission stabilises we step back and say ‘what can we do to make this a more efficient activity, because we always have people who need services from us, what can we do to reconstitute our training program,’ those types of ideas. ” Then when crews return home from an unexpected mission such as Padang Assist, allowing them to rest and recuperate is a critical issue, with AIRCDRE Oddie noting personnel get taken away from their families at short notice and placed in a high tempo environment.

“Commonly that can take a number of weeks for that reconstitution to take account of the personal, family, collective training and whole of organisation reconstitution phase,” said AIRCDRE Oddie. “It does mean that just because the operation part of the mission is over that the mission is still going on until you get through that reconstitution phase and then you’re back to stabilised operations again. ” Overall, the Air Lift Group Commander was very pleased with how Padang Assist was executed, particularly as Air Lift Group was already supporting relief operations in Samoa following the tsunami there.

“From our point of view things went really well, and the partnership we have with our Indonesian friends is nothing short of exceptional. ”