Combat Search and Rescue: The crews who go back

Colombian Air Force · Photography

Why it exists

For years, Colombian helicopter crews flew over soldiers and police they could not reach in time. Pilots who flew Black Hawks in those years still talk about that helplessness. Out of it came a decision: build a real rescue capability. With advice from US Southern Command, the first special operations crews were certified in 2005, and in 2007 the Air Force formally created its personnel recovery structure, with dedicated helicopters known as Ángel.

The people on the cable

A rescue crew is pilots, hoist operators, combat nurses and the rescuers the Air Force calls Rescatistas de Personal. They train to reach people in open water, in the jungle and on mountainsides, and to bring them up a cable into a helicopter that is holding a hover. In the first year of the new system, by the account of the officer who built it, the number of people rescued went from 400 to 2,800.

Beyond the war

The same crews answer when the country floods or burns, and they have flown far from home. After the 2009 Cinchona earthquake in Costa Rica they spent nine days evacuating more than 700 people. In June 2023 an Ángel crew hoisted the four Indigenous children who had survived 40 days alone in the Caquetá jungle, lifting them at night through trees more than 30 meters tall.

The part nobody sees

Colombian crews train alongside allied forces at Red Flag Rescue in Arizona, one of the most demanding rescue exercises in the world. In 2023 they were the only Latin American air force taking part. What we photographed is the part that never makes the news: the open water drills, the cold, the repetition, until the hoist feels routine and nobody has to think when it matters.