The North Prefecture is clear: “Do not relay false information!”. This Thursday, June 8, a search and rescue exercise for an aircraft in distress is taking place, organized by the ARCC, Lyon’s aeronautical rescue coordination center, to train the prefectural services.
From 8 a.m. this Thursday, June 8 and until 6 p.m., “a research exercise” and of “rescue of an aircraft in distress” takes place in the department of the North.
This “exercise helps simulate an aircraft crash and to test all air and ground resources“, writes the Prefecture of the Hauts-de-France and North region in a press release posted on Twitter.
The objective of the SAREX scenario (search and rescue exercise), organized by the ARCC (aeronautical rescue coordination center) is to prepare “all the actors involved in the search and rescue of an aircraft“in distress, explains the communication service of the Air and Space Force.
In the Nord department, today, it is “to involve the prefecture and the prefectural services in their area of prerogative of search and rescue. We bring the air resources and the prefecture is in charge of providing security, emergency resources, etc.“.
This kind of exercise is not specific to the Nord department, as this tweet from the Prefecture of Charente from 2019 shows:
For information, the ARCC unit, based in Lyon and attached to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, deals with “to coordinate the aerial search for a lost aircraft“. As soon as there is no more news from an aircraft or a crash is suspected, this unit”coordinates with the prefectural services“premises to send teams on site.
It also organizes exercises, like the one today.
In today’s scenario, “our Lyon ARCC gives the information to the prefecture that a plane has crashed, and the prefecture will implement its means to find a model of the aircraft with a signal beacon”. She will also put “rescue in place” who will come to the aid of the potential (and false) victims of this exercise.
Among the means usually engaged in this type of exercise, which is not unique to the Nord department, we find the gendarmerie and civil security. Helicopters are, among other things, mobilized.
In short, the ARCC wants to test “the research part” because “the prefecture does not know where we put this fake crashed plane“. This is why the communication service of the Air and Space Force cannot tell us where the exercise is taking place.