The OR&R team took off from ATC Mobile and flew for over one hour in an HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft. Coast Guard crew demonstrated the aircraft’s capabilities, including its onboard camera system used for all Coast Guard missions including search-and-rescue, waterways management and pollution response. The flight covered the central Gulf Coast from Mobile to Gulfport, Mississippi. On board, Coast Guard camera operators captured footage and observational data from the Alabama and Mississippi coastlines and individual targets such as oil storage tanks and refinery facilities. The data were then transferred to the OR&R staff who used it to design a protocol for potential collaboration during future incident response.

Together, OR&R hopes to potentially leverage these systems and the data generated to further support incident response where the office provides scientific support to the Coast Guard under the National Contingency Plan and natural disasters.