Estevan residents might see a big plane in the skies today as a C-130 is in the air.

The plane is normally based around Winnipeg and has found itself in the southeast for some search and rescue training.

Captain Yuri Kostyuchenko explains that's to make sure they can operate in varying environments.

"To get realistic training - because you can never guess where a crash can happen - we go around and just do our scenarios in different areas. We attempt to drop equipment like we did today at the airport and then get our SAR Techs to jump as they were pretending to provide aid to a crash victim."

While the C-130 they fly is quite a bit bigger than the usual plane, Kostyuchenko says it won't be too disruptive. 

"We fly above 1000 feet usually, unless we pick where we do our scenario. The scenarios we should try to pick them in isolated areas because we have to avoid farms and stuff, startling the animals and obviously the population, no one wants to hear the plane. They obviously notice when we land their field. But that's just normal noise that you would get from a 737 coming into Estevan."

Search and rescue training is a week-long affair, with the team looking to stay up-to-date and prepared in case there's an emergency.

"Overall we train Monday to Friday, so Monday to Thursday we fly during the day and then at night. It's basically just to keep current and become more proficient at it just in case something actually happens."

"Our search and rescue area for Winnipeg goes pretty much from the border of BC, Alberta, all the way to Ontario and all the way to the North Pole. So it's a pretty big area, lots of different terrain and stuff. So we train all around."

Kostyuchenko says it's nice to be in Estevan, especially since the last time they were here was at the height of the COVID pandemic.

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