YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Talk about timing.
Two real-world emergencies meant the 374th Airlift Wing did not have to simulate everything for auditors last week during the first surprise inspection of a Pacific Air Forces unit in recent years.
Medical personnel and a C-17 Globemaster and its crew left Yokota for earthquake-ravaged Indonesia on Monday as part of an Air Force humanitarian team culled from bases around the region. The same day, Typhoon Melor began heading toward Japan, triggering a base-wide alert that lasted several days, though Yokota suffered little damage when the storm hit Thursday.
“We’re an expeditionary force and our mission is to help with regional stability. We’ve been doing this a while and so we’re always ready to go,” said wing spokesman Maj. Chris Watt. “There wasn’t much scrambling.”
The inspection, which tested the wing’s ability to deploy airmen and aircraft and other “readiness” capabilities, was the first no-notice inspection in the Pacific since the Air Force in June defined “no-notice” as no more than 72 hours.
For the past few years, Pacific Air Forces units typically have been given about a year’s notice to prepare for inspections like the one Yokota underwent last week, Maj. Kenneth Hoffman, PACAF spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.
“Although the option of conducting no-notice inspections existed, none were conducted during that period,” Hoffman said.
The most common types of Air Force inspections test a unit’s ability to execute missions, comply with laws and Air Force regulations, and conform to nuclear guidelines for bases with such capabilities.
Because the inspections are controlled by major commands, such as PACAF, there are no records of average inspection notification times before the new guideline was put in place, said Col. Jack Briggs, director of inspections for the Air Force IG at the Pentagon.
The no-notice definition was put into place to standardize inspections and was tied to a 2006 initiative by then-Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne to develop a “more continuous inspection process,” Briggs said.
The IG in June also defined minimal-notice inspections as those with no more than 45 days’ notice.
Inspectors from PACAF headquarters in Hawaii on Friday briefed wing leaders on their initial findings, Watt said. They will return in December to further examine the wing, which includes about 2,600 airmen.
Citing security concerns, officials said inspection results typically are not made public.
