Safety factors in base closure

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Austin May
  • 47th FTW Public Affairs
LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  When snow, sleet and ice began falling on Laughlin Tuesday, throngs of children and adults alike spilled into their yards to make snowmen, throw snowballs and otherwise enjoy an uncommon treat.

However, while the winter weather was a delight for the children, it was a safety concern for base leadership. In order to reduce risks to Laughlin members, the wing commander closed the base Tuesday and Wednesday except for mission critical personnel.

"Laughlin's flying training mission is vital, but our priority is the safety of our people when dangerous weather impacts the base," said Col. Mike Minahan, 47th Flying Training Wing commander.

While ice and snow are uncommon in this region, Laughlin has plans and procedures in place so the base's mission won't suffer and its people aren't at risk during just such an occurrence.

"We have weather attrition built in to our flying scheduling program," said Col. David Petersen, 47th Operations Group commander. "We use a historic look back on how many sorties we tend to lose due to weather. In winter months we can have attrition as high as 25 percent. This means we expect to lose about a quarter of the month's sorties due to weather so we plan accordingly."

Laughlin's superb professional maintainers ensured the base's fleet of aircraft were unscathed by the winter storm.

"Our maintenance experts have procedures in place for events like this," said Mark Hewitt, 47th Maintenance Directorate deputy director. "They ensured the aircraft were properly sheltered, protected and tied down to successfully weather this storm."

Because of the professionalism of Team XL, what could have been a hazardous day wrought with turmoil, turned out to be little more than a rare treat for many.