ScanDiego.com

I heard snippets of it months ago... Today, on San Diego City Tac 6 there is activity concerning a volcano, trapped scientists and the need for air support!
It has to be a drill since I know that there's no volcanic activity anywhere within 1000's of miles but these guys sure play it to the hilt if it is!

Heard on San Diego City Tactical 6

USGS employee
"Alan"
Unit 61
Landing Zone Ursula
"Can you guys do me a favor and pick up any rocks blasted out of the volcano?"
"We're in survival mode here. That's very low on our priority."
"Can you give us any idea of possible air support? We're in a kill-zone here"
"I want you to know that if you can't get us some air resources here soon, we'll all be dead!"
and much more!

What the hell is all this? It's the strangest thing that I've ever heard on the scanner.

Richard

This would be fantastic to hear if anybody was able to record it

I heard the same thing on NE, NE2, NW & NW2. From the accent of some of the voices, they were in the south pacific. Talking about air support has been diverted, so you are on your own for now. Different landing zones. I thought it was bleedover from some other system when I first heard it on my way home. I have never heard anything like it either.

My confusion is that the situation just didn't seem to be real. There was a sense of emergency in their voices but no real urgency or panic. They did not seem at all like professional rescue personnel and the fellow "Alan" was quite nonchalant about the idea that there were no air resources to rescue those who were "trapped".

Another bit that I heard when I first began listening (about 1530) was that they "had taken another trail and were due at the landing zone earlier than expected, about 0645." If that was in the next 15 minutes, it would have put them in the same time zone as the Phillipines.

I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who heard this. I thought, for sure, that it would be easily explainable.

Richard
BCD396T
Lake Murray
KD6JAV

I said that some of the voices sounded like they were in the South Pacific

There was no dispatcher either. It was likely a training exercise, maybe CERT But I would think that they would not be using unused PD channels if they were civilians. That did not make sense to me.

This is a drill they do for I believe a leadership class that the County puts on.

I heard the same thing on the RCS a couple years back I think the RCS talkgroups I heard them on were the south or the east mutual aid talkgroups pretty interesting.

A few days earlier, it was SDPD Tac 2, and a major earthquake in east county, with a landslide that had trapped part of a fire crew, etc. They don't bother to say anything about it being a drill on these training exercises, so you have to exercise a bit of common sense yourself and check to see if there's OTHER traffic that confirms some major event. Or, for a supposed earthquake, look at the USGS site that lists them within 5 minutes, if they're real.

Of course, unless you were dead drunk a few minutes before hearing about a 'major earthquake', the fact that you felt nothing might be a clue, too.

The most interesting thing about all this is the way they "perform" their roles. Knowing that it's a practice makes some of the conversation, requests and statements a bit humorous. In one exchange, "Alan" asked the folks who were awaiting rescue if they could pick up some volcanic rocks for his personal geological study and was replied to rather exasperatedly that this was extremely low on their priorities. Later, this same "Alan" made a nonchalant comment about the surprising number of "Americans in the group" and had his ears pinned back by the other party blasting him for unnecessary and inappropriate requests for information. Also, why use a time such as 0645 (more than eleven hours ahead) in a real-time drill locally? Again, these folks play act this drill to the hilt and it's the strangest activity I've ever run across.

Richard

The drill was in the fictional country of Costa Ricardo, but the guy *I* was listening to (Blackhawk 64, NCWD1) sounded like an Indian *India type).