RESCUE IN THE BALKANS : Training Key to Survival, Experts Say

While an anxious nation--including his family and friends--fretted for days that Capt. Scott F. O’Grady might never be found alive after his F-16 jet was shot down over Bosnia-Herzegovina, his superiors and experts in military survival training knew better.

To them, the developments that sounded so ominous in news reports were signs of hope. Far from despairing, the experts sensed that the downed pilot was alive and well and behaving exactly the way he had been trained to do.

Almost six days after his aircraft crashed, O’Grady was snatched to safety by a rescue team, and the experts could only smile. From first to last, O’Grady’s experience had been a picture-perfect demonstration of how to survive in and escape from hostile territory, they said.

“This guy was well-trained,” Robert W. Gaskin, a retired Air Force officer who specialized in rescuing downed airmen during the Vietnam War, said of O’Grady. “Everything he did was by the book and letter perfect.

“It wasn’t a bad thing that nobody heard from him for nearly a week,” Gaskin added. “In fact, that was an encouraging sign for the military, because it meant he was following proper procedure.

“He had been taught that, if you’re near people, become a rock, find a hole, and stay there,” said Gaskin. “Once the human population thins out, then go look around.”

Although an exhausted O’Grady has not discussed his ordeal in detail, U.S. officials said they believed that the pilot, a graduate of a demanding 17-day survival training program at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Wash., had followed the step-by-step script on how to evade his attackers and plan his own rescue, leaving clues for waiting rescuers that he was safe.

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Since he had not been injured while ejecting from the F-16, his first priority was to hide his parachute, the officials said. When the Bosnian Serbs announced that they had found the chute and seized the pilot, U.S. experts concluded that they were lying--and that O’Grady was operating according to plan.

“I discounted that right away,” said Gaskin. “If they had found him, they would have put him on television, so that meant they didn’t have him. It also discredited their claim of having found his parachute, which would have been a very bad sign if they had. A pilot is trained to get rid of his parachute as soon as possible but never to leave it behind.”

O’Grady also apparently silenced one of the signal beacons in his parachute as soon as possible after he ejected from the plane--a step experts said is crucial to a pilot in his predicament.

The beacon, triggered by the force of the pilot’s ejection, has a battery that can last up to 12 hours and must be shut off by hand.

If it had remained on for an extended period, military officials and enemy forces would have heard it.

But by apparently shutting it down, O’Grady alerted North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces that he had successfully ejected and was able to stop the signal.

Finding shelter would also be a must for a downed pilot. Summoning his buddies to come to his rescue could wait--weeks if necessary.

Sleeping during the day and moving only at night to avoid capture, a downed pilot would eat sparingly from bits of rations carried in his pockets.

And from time to time, he would send radio signals to search planes.

Military officials read such signals and knew, according to Adm. William Owens, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the 29-year-old pilot had “learned his lessons and executed his lessons when it matters most.”

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As soon as it seems safe, a downed pilot is taught, he should move to high ground and resume signaling, so that friendly troops can find him.

The training program is designed not only to train pilots in survival and evasion techniques but to build their confidence by teaching them such things as which bugs and plants they can eat and how to find water.

O’Grady told his colleagues after the rescue that he had survived by devouring insects and drinking rainwater.

Before a pilot graduates from the program, he must complete a three-day survival exercise.

“They set you down in an isolated or rough area with bad guys all around, and you have to make it back to safety,” Gaskin said. “[O’Grady] had been through all this before. The course was a dress rehearsal for what he went through.”

Gaskin, who completed a similar course in 1968, said the survival techniques were honed by the experiences of U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam.

“The Air Force got a Ph.D. in survival training during Vietnam,” he said. “The techniques haven’t changed much since then. All the lessons we learned over there paid off for O’Grady, and that’s why he’s alive and safe today.”

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Survival Tricks

The downed U.S. pilot survived in Bosnian Serb territory for six days, thanks to Air Force training and survival equipment he carried. A look at the techniques and tools a downed U.S. pilot in the Balkans can call upon:

TRAINING Concealment Catching small animals and preparing them as food Identifying edible plants Finding water Finding shelter Navigating by land, both day and night

SURVIVAL KIT Handgun Flares Small amount of food, including chocolate and sugar for energy Compass Serbo-Croatian phrasebook Small, battery-powered radio Beacon to pinpoint location Matches to start a fire for warmth and cooking Blanket Manual with survival tips

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Scott F. O’Grady’s survival kit was strapped to the bottom of his ejection seat Sources: Associated Press, Reuters