The Civil Aviation Search and Rescue Association held a training exercise over the weekend in La Ronge.
Eleven new and current members of the group got to go up in a Hercules transport plane.
The members were undergoing certification – in case they need to help out with any searches over the next year.
Vaughan Skogstad is the provincial dispatcher for CASARA.
Skogstad says the military trainers showed the members how to move in and out of their seats without losing sight of the ground.
He says it is all part of knowing how to assist in a search if called upon:
“So this was to come up and get us current, in case the military are up in this area and decide their people are getting tired and they need some extra eyes in the aircraft — then they can actually draw on people from our area here.”
Skogstad says that includes everything from missing planes, to cars, to people who have dementia and have wandered into the bush and gotten lost.