Report of the MCAS Miramar Community Leaders Forum (CLF) meeting.
Thursday, November 8, 2018, 5:30 pm
1. Guest speaker, Major Elio “Frosty” Marcillo, related his experiences as a Marine Corps pilot and his
current assignment with the Defense Support of Civil Authority (DSCA) unit. Talks began with Calfire
in 2009 after the 2007 wildfire in San Diego County. As a result, a MOU was completed in 2016 where
certain types of military aircraft from Miramar and Camp Pendleton would be used during daylight
hours to assist fighting wildfires in coordination with Calfire. Those specific aircraft are the Bell UH-1
(Huey), Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion and V-22 Osprey. Each has a different carrying capacity and can
“dip” into a near-by body of water to quickly reload. They can also land to take on fire retardant instead
of water. As part of the MOU, exercises are conducted during April each year.
Frosty is retiring soon and hopes to fly 737s for one of the major airlines.
2. The community of University City has been sensitive to Miramar aircraft over-flying their
neighborhood since the tragic crash of an F-18 on December 8, 2008 killing 4 people and destroying
homes. The University City Community Association (UCCA) asked for a meeting with the
Commanding Officer to address their concerns. Colonel Dockery, the C.O. of Miramar Airstation,
responsed with a letter to the UCCA explaining how he was opposed to meeting with any isolated
group, such as them, and explained that many procedural changes have been made as a result of that
crash. He reiterated that any concerns from any of the communities adjacent to the airstation present
their comments and concerns at the quarterly CLF meetings.
His letter further explained that the FAA Air Traffic Control and the Miramar control tower controlled
and monitored all flights into and out of Miramar Airstation in accordance with approved FAA
regulations.
3. Tony Guinn, the assistant operations officer, usually presents an Operations Report. Tony was
unavailable. The usual report quantifies with grafs and tables the number of various operations and
complaints in the past month compared to the previous year's same month. Since the CLF is going to
quarterly meetings, instead of monthly, I imagine there might be a change in the scope of the report.
Mike Ogilvie,
Tierrasanta Community Council and Planning Group
