F-22 Plus-Up Environmental Assessment - Joint Base Elmendorf ...

F-22 Plus-Up Environmental Assessment
3.0 Affected Environment
consists of those personnel and agencies primarily responsible for the initial phase. This
element will include the Fire Chief, who will normally be the first On-Scene Commander, firefighting
and crash rescue personnel, medical personnel, security police, and crash recovery
personnel. A subsequent response team will be comprised of an array of organizations whose
participation will be governed by the circumstances associated with the mishap and actions
required to be performed.
The Air Force has no specific rights or jurisdiction just because a military aircraft is involved.
Regardless of the agency initially responding to the accident, efforts are directed at stabilizing the
situation and minimizing further damage. If the accident has occurred on non-DoD property, and
depending on the nature of the accident, the owning or management agency or individual
responsible for the property would be notified, a National Defense Area would be established
around the accident scene, and the site would be secured for the investigation phase.
Flight safety includes the potential for interaction between civil aviation and high performance
military aircraft. Actions have been implemented by JBER to avoid Major Flying Exercises in
MOAs during the September hunting season to reduce the potential for military aircraft being in a
MOA while general aviation aircraft are ferrying hunters or fisherman. Past discussions with
pilots, hunters, fishermen, and recreationists flying to use the land under the MOAs revealed that,
although they occasionally sighted a military aircraft, they generally flew at lower altitudes than
the military aircraft and both pilots practiced see-and-avoid measures (Air Force 2006). JBER
pilots have been able to successfully train while being joint users of Alaskan airspace.
Flight safety also includes the potential for bird-aircraft strikes in the MOAs. In the case of the
F-22, this risk is negligible because the F-22s normally fly at altitudes above the zone (0 to 3,000
feet AGL) where 95 percent of bird-aircraft strikes occur. Section 2.2 includes the flight altitude
by percent of time for the F-22.
3.3.2.2 Ground and Explosive Safety
Aircrews from JBER train on air-to-ground ranges. Air-to-ground expenditure of munitions
during training is limited to ranges within Restricted Airspace. Munitions use is presented in
Table 2.2-4. Air Force safety standards require safeguards on weapons systems and ordnance to
ensure against inadvertent releases. All munitions mounted on an aircraft, as well as the guns,
are equipped with mechanisms that preclude release or firing without activation of an
electronic arming circuit.
When live (high-explosive) ordnance impacts a target, it detonates, and the effects of this
detonation are blast and overpressure in the immediate vicinity of the target. When a training
(inert) air-to-ground weapon impacts on or near the target, it may skid, bounce, or burrow
under the ground for some distance from the point of impact, coming to rest at some distance
from that point. The military services have analyzed extensive historic data on ordnance and
incorporated those data into a computer program (called SAFE-RANGE). SAFE-RANGE
considers the type of ordnance, the aircraft, the delivery profile, the target type, as well as other
data such as the demonstrated accuracy of the aircraft’s bombing and navigation system. The
program then calculates an area around the target within which either effects from live
ordnance will spread, or the specific training or inert ordnance under consideration will come to
rest. This area has dimensions in front of, behind, and on either side of the target. The results
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