McChord maintainers get C-17 back ‘online’ through tele-conference

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Kirsten Wicker
  • 62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  McChord maintainers recently came to the rescue of a C-17 Globemaster III which had developed a computer problem in the avionics system while on a mission to Africa and Europe.

Tech. Sgt. Kenneth Bennett and Staff Sgt. Matthew Mazure, 62nd Maintenance Group avionics technicians, guided a McChord 8th Airlift Squadron aircrew through an avionics repair and re-set procedure Sept. 19 via tele-conference while the aircraft was safely on the ground.

"The coordination between the aircrew and our McChord maintenance team was phenomenal," said Capt. Theodore Shanks, 8th AS, aircraft commander. "From the flight deck, Capt. Ben Chapman, 1st Lt. Leo Del Los Santos and I called our McChord Maintenance Team. Very quickly, we were speaking to Sergeant Bennett and Sergeant Mazure."

The goal was to save Air Mobility Command and McChord from deploying additional maintainers to the location in Cape Verde, an archipelago in the Atlantic 385 mi (500 km) west of Senegal, to fix the avionics system. The ability to work through the problem on the phone provided the aircrew with an efficient repair, allowing the mission to continue the next day.

"I can't emphasize enough how much these two men contributed to the mission," Captain Shanks said. "Not only was the taxpayer spared time, money and resources required to send a maintenance team from McChord (nearly 6,000 miles), but their thorough knowledge and professionalism allowed us to make the aircraft, once again, fully mission capable."

"The successful completion of the mission was directly due to the combined effort and synergy of expert maintainers Sergeant Bennett and Sergeant Mazure and our crew," said Senior Airman Andrew Lloyd, 8th AS loadmaster on the trip.

"It was extremely satisfying to be back under way," said Captain Shanks. "None of it would have been possible, however, without the dedication and professionalism of our McChord Airmen."

The Cape Verde mission also included Senior Airman Toby Christensen, 8th AS loadmaster and Senior Airman Lori Fiorello, 62nd Comptroller Squadron.