Blanco requested and received a TFR for the Blanco River area. Geographically, Blanco County is located upstream and north of Wimberley, and had eight people confirmed missing. Primary search activities for those victims were shared among the Blanco Valley Fire Department/Emergency Management office, TEXSAR, and the Wimberley Fire Department’s unmanned aviation unit.
Houston Center is the office of primary responsibility for the issuance of the TFRs and also issues Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), informing pilots of hazards. Terminal Radar Approach Control Facilities (TRACON) in Austin and San Antonio were notified of the operations for consideration of routing traffic around the area. With the Blanco Valley TFR area established, the Point of Contact (POC) for all manned and unmanned aircraft in this area was Gene Robinson of the Wimberley Fire Department’s aviation unit. The initial unmanned flight crew was Gene Robinson (WFD) as PIC, Coitt Kessler (Austin FD RED Team) as VO, and Andrew Reyes (AFD RED TEAM) as PAC. On flood + 5 day, the Wimberley Fire Department submitted the request for TFRs for an initial five-mile area. The FAA expanded that area to encompass a 13-mile area along the Blanco River in the Wimberley Valley. Gene Robinson was requested by the Incident Commander to assume the air operations position for the Wimberley restricted flight airspace. Air operations responsibilities included acting as the point of contact for all air-related operations and management of airspace de-confliction.
Communication of All Air Assets on Scene – De-conflicting Airspace
Throughout the flood response, the Wimberley Valley Incident Command benefited and operated out of a mobile incident command center; it provided a secure workspace with conferencing capabilities, and a full complement of computers and communication equipment.
Initially, Air Operations unsuccessfully attempted to communicate ground-to-air using hand-held radios, but this failed due to low broadcasting power and the need for “line of sight.” A stronger UHF base station was provided by the San Marcos Airport, although it had no antenna. The mobile incident command center had a mast with an antenna array that had the capability of transmitting on the aviation frequencies and was “patched in” to the communications array.
While this was not the optimum configuration, it did provide incident command communications for the largest part of the Wimberley Valley area where the bulk of the aviation activity was occurring. Aircraft that entered the temporary flight restriction (TFR) area and were participating in the emergency response were advised to monitor the open frequency of 123.025mhz. Aircraft were instructed to “blind call” when entering the TFR zone and to also announce when within two miles of the search area on an inbound course. For the most part, the aircrews were responsible for traffic de-confliction much the same as operating around a municipal airport with no tower. The Incident Command Air Operations advised aircraft of other ongoing flight operations and advised when to steer clear of areas that had sensitive search operations underway.
It should be noted that even with these efforts, state helicopters reported several instances where communications/contact could not be made with Incident Command. There were four instances of non-cooperative aircraft during the flood response:
• R44 helicopter (# 1) flying low over an active canine search with the incident commander present;
• Unauthorized unmanned aircraft operating on behalf of volunteer group;
• State rotary aircraft entered into unmanned aircraft operational airspace unannounced; and
R44 helicopter (#1) and the unmanned aircrew lost privileges to operate within the TFR, and Air Operations asked both units to leave the area of operations. The state rotary aircraft was advised of infraction and was permitted to stay based on Air Operations judgment. The R44 helicopter (# 2) was unidentified and no further actions were able to be taken.