The search and rescue squad "Angel" is always happy to receive any help: from working on the Internet to posting orientations and going to the site.
Six years ago, Sergei Kovgan, a Minsk resident, the future commander of the Angel rescue squad, saw a woman on TV asking volunteers to help find her missing father. Without hesitation for a long time, Sergei took a friend and went to the Borisov region. I arrived and there was no one there. It turned out that no one else answered the call.
Together with professional rescue services, we spent the whole day looking for the missing person, - Sergey recalls. - Alas, to no avail. A week later, the man was found dead. I thought: what if more people came, maybe he could be saved. Then the idea came up to create an "Angel" - a detachment that will unite dozens of volunteers.
To begin with, Sergey registered a group on social networks, added a few friends. And almost immediately the first request for help was received - to find a missing girl in Minsk. The guy was confused, counted on a forest search, he did not have information about working in urban conditions. And even then the detachment had neither experience nor equipment. Activists threw a cry for help on the Internet, put up ads. Unfortunately, the girl could not be saved - she was found dead a month later.
To gain experience, Sergei got acquainted with Russian search teams, attended exercises, and learned the basics of working in different areas. He shared his knowledge with volunteers from Belarus.
Inform within hours
Today, Angel has its own office, high-quality equipment and a large volunteer staff. If earlier a large number of people were required to comb the area, now the task can be solved with the help of modern technology.
In order to buy the necessary equipment, I look for sponsors every day, communicate with various commercial structures, which, seeing the significance of our work, provide assistance, - says Sergey. - If six years ago no one knew about Angela, now we have hundreds of thousands of subscribers in social networks. We can inform a multi-million audience in a matter of hours. Efficiency is also achieved through interaction with the media, taxi services, accident registration offices and law enforcement agencies. With the help of orientations, the missing are found in hot pursuit. For example, recently the location of an eight-year-old boy who left school after school in an unknown direction was established in 20 minutes. Agree, it's not bad.
Emotional burnout
Today "Angel" unites about 100 permanent volunteers. Also in the team there is a climber, a cynologist, a diver, a psychologist, a signalman. Once a year, republican exercises are held for volunteers, where they learn how to use the equipment, navigate the forest, talk to people and provide them with psychological assistance.
The activities of the detachment are built on a voluntary basis. To participate in the search and rescue operation, we do not call anyone, but announce a general collection. I never know how many people will take part in the search. New volunteers constantly come to the detachment, but only a small part stays with us for a long time. I'm not mad at people who burn out quickly. They will not receive a salary, and they have no other motivation, except for the desire to help, - says Sergey.
You can ask for help from the detachment at any time of the day. It happens that up to ten calls are received per day. They try to respond to all requests, but resources are not always enough. At the same time, the detachment develops, creates regional units and minimally provides them with the necessary equipment.
Any activity, including volunteering, depends on funding, Sergey explains. - Purchase of equipment, repair and maintenance of equipment, rent of an office and a warehouse, parking for special vehicles require large monthly costs. We work together with my wife: I am engaged in search operations and organization of fees, she communicates with the media. We do not pursue a commercial goal: assistance is provided free of charge.
In winter, "Angel" is involved in the search for missing fishermen. The bodies of those who have fallen through the ice have to be retrieved with the help of divers.
The initial information makes it clear who we are looking for: dead or alive. Depending on this, the algorithm of work changes. The deceased is harder to find. This is hard work, often without results. Relatives until the last believe in the best, but we, based on experience, roughly understand what the final will be. Emotions in our business are not the best helpers. The main task of the detachment is to find a person. And whether he will be alive or not, unfortunately, is a thing that is no longer dependent on us.
Why am I searching and not cross stitching?
Forest search coordinator (one of the Angel squads) Christina Kruk was brought to the group by her own misfortune - the loss of a loved one. Six years ago, the detachment was looking for a man for information, by identifying witnesses. The body of the missing man was found three months later in the forest by hunters. After the incident, Christina continued to follow the "Angel". Soon she decided to take part in the search and rescue operation herself and ... stayed in the detachment.
Over time, I gained experience and now I independently draw up a plan for search activities, - says the girl. - "Angel" works 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, so the burden on volunteers is serious. And despite the fact that everyone has a family and the main job. Some morally do not stand up, leave. Of those who started working with us, only a few remained. My relatives say to me: “Why do you need this?” And I don’t know myself, probably I just can’t do it any other way. When I run in the rain through the forest, I often think: why am I searching, and not, for example, embroidering with a cross?
Christina says that, despite the preparedness of the detachment, not all stories have a happy ending. Fragments of the brutal murder of Tatyana Slonimskaya, the unsuccessful search for the schoolgirl Nastya Kot, and the largest operation to search for the underage Maxim Markhaliuk, which she led, emerge in the girl’s memory.
Tragic stories make us constantly improve our work, - Christina emphasized. - Unfortunately, we are not omnipotent, but we always give our best. Our team has saved hundreds of lives.
Additionally
It is not necessary to have search and rescue experience to become a volunteer. PSO is always glad to any help: from working on the Internet to posting orientations and going to the site.
Anna Khaldeeva
Photo: Search and rescue squad "Angel"
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If you're lost, help will come from the sky
“If the phone dies and you find out in three days that he died because we didn’t manage to find him on the phone in time, what will you do? When you fly back, it’s immediately clear what the result is: either everyone in the helicopter is whispering, laughing, talking, or silence ... "
About the helicopter search and rescue squad "Angel", the dreams and fears of the pilot tells
"When I saw my mother, I realized what I had done"
One day in 2006, search and rescue squad No. 1 under the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Mozhaisk began searching for a grandmother with two children in the forest. And there is a forest to the west, what a hoo - if you do not cross the railway, then only wolves, wild boars and the Baltic Sea are ahead. Imagine the state of the parents...
Grandmother was in touch, she had matches, she was told to make a fire and not go anywhere, and they decided to look for her from the air. The guys from the detachment found the phone number of the Vatulino airfield and called the flight director. At that time I had just finished flying on my small plane and went to say goodbye. And the leader says to me: “Sasha, in the Mozhaisk region, a family is lost in the forest, the Ministry of Emergency Situations is calling, asking for help.”
I became interested, and I said: let's try. It was an hour and a half before dark, the airfield was not lit at that time - it was impossible to fly in the dark, in addition, the weather deteriorated, a rain front was falling, it took about twenty minutes to fly there, and it’s really not known where, but I’m flying.
Alexander "Boatman" Mikhailov.
I flew to the place, I see - there is no fire, only in one place there is a black column of smoke, I think it’s definitely not my grandmother with children, but since there are no others at all, I think I’ll fly and see what’s there. It turned out that the black smoke was ours: my grandmother could not find anything else to set fire to, and set fire to the rear wheel from the tractor - in our forest you can find everything, even a German tank.
I didn’t have a connection with her, because it’s almost impossible to fly a plane and communicate with someone, and there was no headset. The rescuers told her: "The plane will flap its wings and show you the exit direction." I saw that the nearest dirt road was two kilometers away. He turned around, went to their fire, descended and slowly, at the lowest speed, shaking his wings, pointed in the right direction.
I fly, I turn around - they stand. I descend for the second time, flap my wings - they stand. The third time he went down quite low, made a terrible face, shook his fist at them, made a full circle, and they slowly went in that direction. I flew away and returned, showed them, looked at the cyclone, looked at the approaching night ...
They came out of the woods into a field that separated them from the road. Once again I turned around, I looked, a UAZ drove up, guys in a "green" came out of it - apparently, the huntsmen, they also see me and understand that I am taking the lost ones onto the road, to this place.
And about fifteen minutes later, a G8 drove up, and a woman got out of it, and I realized that it was my mother: I flew off to the forest, and this woman immediately tried to run in the direction in which I flew. I directly saw how the men grabbed her: “Where? It wasn’t enough to look for you there yet.” The children and their grandmother have another kilometer to go, and I can see both of them from above.
And on the edge of this wet, dirty, ordinary our field, the boy was the first to appear - he went a little ahead of his sister and grandmother.
And then this woman escaped from the hands of the peasants and ran across the field, and I see from the plane how she runs through the mud, the spray is flying, she stumbles and falls, rises and runs further. How she rushed to him ... no words are needed, I saw it all from the air.
I didn’t make a dead loop and shoot salutes, but I made a couple of such turns with a decrease - I also had to somehow release my emotions ...
It was only when I saw this meeting that I realized what I had done.
Dove cows and the consecration of the plane
- What happened next?
- Then there was a pause in the search, but they already knew about us, and small local appeals came to us: for example, they asked for help when the car was stolen. And the next thing I suddenly had to look for was ... a herd of cows.
In 2008, I received an L-42 seaplane in Togliatti - a completely new domestic development, and therefore we had many problems with it - in particular, we could not figure out why the landing gear was not retracted, and once, when we were fiddling with it , the local chairman of the collective farm came to us. Remember, there was such an artist - Yan Arlazorov?
- Certainly. "Listen, man!"
- Exactly. A police car drives up, and in it sits "Arlazorov", the chairman of the local only surviving and well-living collective farm. Seventy expensive breeding heifers were stolen from him.
He tells us: “Guys, help in any way you can. They are my pretty little doves."
So about the cows, as if the children were gone ... He told which “boots” were “shod”, which had what “colors”.
I ask him: “How do we recognize them?” “You will recognize mine!”
Boatman
We fly with him, and from time to time I have to pass the helm to the co-pilot in order to laugh. We fly over the herd, I ask him: “Yours?” He told me: "No, my beautiful." And they are cows and cows. And he also said: "Boys, boys, you stop here, I'll look." And he was not joking at all, he was almost hysterical because of these heifers. “Let's see there, let's see here” - I got tired of this, and I began to work in an expanding spiral.
In general, we found them near the forest, they were not allowed to leave, they were kept, there was a car parked there. I tried to see the numbers, but as soon as they noticed the plane, they drove the car under the trees so that it was not visible from above. I turned around, and they realized that they had to bring down, and left. As soon as they left, the cows immediately went to the water: they had not been watered for a day. The chairman had so much happiness!
He asked: “Does your plane have been consecrated?” I say "No". “Are you out of your mind? I have the most important priest of the entire Volga region, I have a holy spring here. In short, we'll come to you tomorrow." The next day they brought us all their meat delicacies and the priest. Father blessed the plane. And over the next three days, we solved all our problems with the electrics, with radio communications, with the chassis - everything that we could not figure out for a month. Here you can believe in anything! And this plane is still with a sticker and flies, the longest, God forbid it fly for a long time.
"You, like angels, descended from heaven"
- How did the "Angel" come into being?
- For the first time, naturally, I attracted private owners of aircraft and helicopters to volunteer searches: they were looking for someone somewhere and decided that they needed to see the forest from the air. The one who was assigned the task at Lisa Alert simply typed “small aviation” on the Internet and saw the word “AOPA” - this is an American abbreviation: a worldwide public organization of pilots and citizens-owners of aircraft, it has branches in many countries.
We called its chairman for the Moscow region, my partner at the airfield, Dmitry Shapovalov. And since I was already doing this by that time - I was collaborating with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Dima gave me information about the call, and so I got to know Lisa Alert, and they began to call us slowly.
I then flew on planes, but in 2011 another search request was received: it was necessary to inspect the forest 100 meters from the Moscow Ring Road, somewhere in the area of Losiny Ostrov. I can’t help you on a plane near the Moscow Ring Road: I will inevitably “cling” the restricted area when turning around - the turning radius of the plane is quite high.
I turned to a familiar pilot and owner of my own helicopter, Mikhail Farikh, and Misha agreed to help, and I flew with him as an observer. From that moment I got hooked on helicopters. But I strongly resisted this for another year and a half, shouting: “You are all lifters, this is not aviation at all, no romance: you pressed the button - you went up, you pressed the button - you went down, if you want - you stand, if you want - you fly ... "
After this incident, we helped Liza Alert a couple of times, and then a tragedy happened: a helicopter disappeared in the Tver region. We started looking for him from the air. I worked on an airplane for one day - it was useless: a white helicopter was scattered between white birches, and then it was all covered with snow, white on white. The fragments lay on fallen birch trees, there are millions of them in the Tver swamps.
And there I realized that I got hooked on a helicopter, because it turned out to be very correct and generally the best means in the world to support any operations.
- When did the Angel squad officially appear?
- Why was the squad called "Angel"?
- We chose the word for a long time. There was a proposal to call the detachment "Nord", I asked: "Are you crazy? This is the German division that stormed Moscow.” I take the title very seriously.
And then, when they told us twice in a row: “Guys, you, like angels, descended from the sky,” we realized: we are an “Angel”.
- By the way, speaking of names: why are you the "Boatman"?
– Because I was one of the first to fly on the most wonderful domestic amphibious aircraft L-42 and wrote a lot on the net under the nickname “Boatman” about flying on this aircraft. Now this is forever my second surname.
- What do you do in your free time from searches and helicopters?
- I have my own business - auto parts, I am a co-owner of the company.
Seaplane L-42
Boatman
Expensive "pleasure" for patients on the whole head
Does the search for the missing take up a lot of your time?
- Almost all. Previously, “Liza Alert” called us, aviation, when it was already too late: the footmen had already worked out, there was no connection with the lost one for a long time, there were no strengths, and then they remember us: and let's take another look from the air. The effectiveness of such work was low, and the results, of course, did not bring satisfaction.
In 2015, there was a breakthrough in the interaction of all services, and they began to give us those people who are in touch. This dramatically increased our efficiency, because if a person is in touch, a helicopter arrives and quickly finds him on the phone. Therefore, from 15 found per year, we jumped to 120.
Previously, we had 30 hours of flight time per one found, and last year we had about 200 hours of flight time per 120 found. Most were quickly found thanks to the leftovers of the phone's battery or competent instructions received before the phone sat down and aviation began to work.
When a person is in touch, we instruct him, we arrive - usually at night (while it is light, the person tries to cope on his own), and when we enter the search area, he dials us: I see you, you just flew over me. We turn around: “Now above you?” - "Yes". "Okay, don't go anywhere." We transfer the coordinates to the walking group and fly back, not even interesting.
- It turns out that in order to participate in aviation searches, one must have a very profitable job!
- Yes. Naturally, business owners can basically afford it. There are guys who have a helicopter for three, and they save every penny, but still fly, there are those who, like me, spend almost everything with the hope that it will be better further.
- It turns out that this is, to put it mildly, for not poor people. If everything is simple for walking search engines - put on waterproof boots, poured gasoline into the tank and drove off - or you can get on someone if there is no car - then everything is much more expensive for you.
- Yes, but this is done mainly by people who are sick in the head. And I am sure that, as a percentage of income, hikers often spend much more than we do and risk their health more than we do. Operations on the ground are usually long and difficult, physically and mentally. We bow before these people, and none of our costs can compare with what they have to do downstairs.
At the award ceremony of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Constellation of Courage. December 2016
- Do people sick of the sky or searches?
- Sky. But we can hardly think of a sky-related hobby that would be so effective and fruitful and would bring benefits on an equal scale to ours. Yes, and a hobby is the language does not turn out to be called.
A hobby is when you like it and you do it, and we do it when we are needed, according to the “365 days / 24 hours” formula. In winter - rarely, and in summer often and howling with fatigue. But none of us can say "no". Up to 10% will die because of our “no, I can’t”, these are statistics. I believe that today participation in searches is simply the duty of any flying citizen.
“By your description, searching from a helicopter is a bit boring. Is it so?
- These are, first of all, emotions that need to be driven into a corner. There are simple operations for us, but they can become difficult and tragic for others at any moment. We, like everyone else, really want to find and are very afraid not to find, we are very afraid to put the phone to a lost or injured person who asks for help, this is the eternal Russian roulette: only the phone connects us, and kilometers of swamps separate us.
You have already spoken to the man and promised to help him. If the phone dies and you find out in three days that he died because we did not have time to find him on the phone in time, what will you do? When you fly back, it’s immediately clear what the result is: either everyone in the helicopter is whispering, laughing, talking, or silence and only service commands are heard ...
Mikhail Farikh and the failed helicopter base
– Please tell us about Mikhail Farikh.
We lived side by side with him. He was a man of great charm. Once, when we were not yet so well acquainted with him, I - or rather, one of my grandmothers I knew had a problem. She is in her eighties, she goes fishing in the winter, picking mushrooms in the forest in the summer - with a tracker (a watch or a bracelet that informs relatives about the whereabouts of a person. - Ed.), in an orange vest and with matches, and teaches the population the same ...
Like any woman who survived the war, she tried to plant potatoes all around her. She bought a plot near the river, planted it, then bought another one, and then a local oligarch appeared and said that he needed access to the water and that he wanted to buy one of her plots, and named the price: three hundred thousand. Grandmother says to him: "He costs one and a half million." And the oligarch told her: “I’ll give you four hundred, if not, see for yourself, you’ll regret it: we’ll take it for free.”
She calls me: “Sasha, what should I do?” And I sometimes flew there by seaplane and sat down near her house - after that, all the local drunks spoke to her only in “you”. I said: “Okay, we will arrive in two or three days.” She says: "He probably won't." - “It doesn’t matter, he has people on the site. We'll fly in, hang around this site, if we can, sit there, then change seats, have lunch and fly away. And you will say that the guys are looking for a place for a landing site, they want to buy land - there will be a helicopter base.
Imagine: you have built a house on the bank of the river, a little bit to the water is left, and suddenly there will be a helicopter base. Under the window, instead of a bath. I didn’t have a helicopter then - I just relearned how to fly them, so we flew in with Misha, hovered there, sat down and waited. There were his local workers. We waited until everyone took photos and videos of us, posed against the background of us, made sure that everything turned out well for everyone, then moved closer to the house, ate village soup, took moonshine, smoked fish and flew away. Literally a day later, the oligarch galloped up and said: "That's it, we're signing, one and a half million."
- Mikhail Farikh - the owner of the badge of the helicopter squad "Angel" number one. What is this sign, why is it given?
- When introducing the badge, we had only one task - so that no one could appropriate it, and no one could give it by their decision. Therefore, the regulation states that the badge is awarded for a successfully completed rescue operation by a volunteer in the crew. An operation is considered successfully completed when the board has completed the task - found the lost person alive or dead. This is a first level sign.
