Heroic Coast Guard Pilot saves Injured Cessna pilot

It was like most any other ordinary summer afternoon in Pensacola, with a lot of weather, when Marcus Troyer plugged in for his shift at Pensacola TRACON (P31) shortly after 12:30 p.m. EDT. In the skies to the west, U.S.

The rescue account comes from NATCA's safety-award reporting, which identifies the people involved and describes the search difficulties created by weather, the missing-aircraft report and the location of the crash site.

The pilot survived with serious injuries. The rescue account does not provide a detailed reconstruction of the Cessnas final flight path.

said the planes owner, Freddie McCall.

The Coast Guard Crew Reached the Injured Pilot

Coast Guard Lt. Commander Brian Hedges was the pilot and aircraft commander on an ordinary training mission in a newly-converted MH65E helicopter. But a short time later, Troyer and Hedges were joined in a search and rescue effort that was anything but ordinary and showcased the essential nature of their respective professions.

Thanks to their efforts, the life of the pilot of a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, Scott Jeffrey Nee, was saved after he crashed into the sandy bank of the Escambia River in a remote area of Jay, Fla., north of Pensacola near the Alabama border, and was seriously injured. said the plane's owner, Freddie McCall. McCall called the facility to report that he was missing an aircraft.

Troyer said. Troyer had experience doing quality control work and was well versed on search and rescue situations

The rescue account is unusually useful because it identifies the people who had to solve the problem from different positions. Troyer was working traffic at Pensacola TRACON, while Hedges was airborne in a Coast Guard helicopter. The missing-aircraft report came from the owner, rather than from an established ATC communication with the Cessna, which meant controllers initially had to determine whether they had any usable radar information on the aircraft.

The weather was a genuine operational complication. NATCAs account describes heavy thunderstorms in the area and notes that several potential helicopter responses were constrained by fuel or other operational limitations. The rescue therefore depended not on a simple dispatch, but on finding an available aircraft and getting the crash location to the responders.

The crash site was on a sandy bank of the Escambia River near Jay, Florida. The pilot was identified as Scott Jeffrey Nee and was seriously injured. The rescue account does not give an exact impact time or a complete final-flight reconstruction.

NATCAs account states that McCall located the crash scene and passed its location to Troyer. The controller then worked to obtain a suitable response while thunderstorms complicated the rescue effort. The account specifically notes that some Navy helicopters could not respond because of fuel limitations and that a LifeFlight crew was unavailable at that moment.

The Coast Guard helicopter operated by Hedges became part of the response. The sources identify the aircraft as a newly converted MH-65E and Hedges as its pilot and aircraft commander.

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