Port of Long Beach UDF

At 1900 26 July two UDF Teams were dispatched directly to the coordinates provided by a CAP aircraft of a 121.5 ELT In the Long Beach Harbor Area. At the Port of Long Beach we picked up sweeps right away. In the confusion of navigating all of the twists and turns of the piers and storage yards, we were grateful to be intercepted by the Harbor Patrol. Two Harbor Patrol vehicles escorted us back to our first location where we met up with their Sergeant.

Now all five vehicles with strobe lights flashing away are clustered  in a big pile right in the middle of the main exit from Pier G. We all head out to the adjacent pier with a Police escort, lights and sirens ablaze twisting and turning through a maze of thousands of storage containers stacked several high as far as you can see. After several minutes wandering this giant mouse maze, we finally end up on foot to zero in on a stack of containers four stories tall.

By now we have piqued the interest of the employees at this yard and have several more vehicles with flashing lights around us. The shipping yard brought over a huge boom lift for us to scan the higher containers for the best signal, while at the same time they are checking the manifests of these containers for clues. At the exact time we were getting very strong sweeps on one particular container, the news came back that this container was filled with parts from an aircraft company and was heading to Australia soon.

Congratulation on their First Finds for  Christopher  Cesena from SQ29 and Robert Harris from SQ 45 who joined Ken Benner, Michael Benner, and Bob Miller for this evenings hunt!

If this sounds like fun, contact 1Lt Benner to get started!!