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A Russian Air Force SAR specialist parachutes with the Russian Air Force flag into the simulated airline crash site to work with Canadian and U.S. counterparts. Russia hosted the first SAREX in Siberia in 1993.

A short take off and landing capable Canadian Air Force Caribou aircraft airlifts Canadian SAR personnel and their equipment to the exercise’s simulated accident site.

Maj. Gen. Oates presented the Alaska Legion of Merit to Russian Maj-Gen Aleksandr Ivanovich Puzanov, head of the Federal Directorate of Air and Space Search and Rescue Forces, who led his country’s delegation to Alaska and has been a strong supporter of multilateral SAR cooperation.

ARCTIC SAREX 01 brought together elite search and rescue troops from Canada and Russia and from the Alaska Air National Guard’s 210th Rescue Squadron, the U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Air Force Reserve at the Malemute Drop Zone on Fort Richardson. The exercise included a 10-member U.S. Air Force rapid response medical team from nearby Elmendorf Air Force Base and helicopters equipped to fly four patients at a time to hospitals for treatment that could not be provided in the field.