Domestic operations
The year 2009 was characterised by the routine of conducting assistance of the police after the Schengen enlargement, which is planned to continue until the end of 2010. Furthermore, it was marked by massive summer rainfalls and the resulting long recovery work done under the title of disaster relief.
Obligatory for the last years, there had been an additional focus on the heavy snowfalls and their consequences in February of that year.
1.1 Assistance on behalf of the police after the Schengen enlargement
This assistance after the Schengen enlargement has been carried out from 22 December 2007 until today, in support of the police to combat illegal border crossing in the Slovak and the Hungarian border regions. Through stationary and mobile observation, information regarding violations of the law, especially immigration-related offences, is passed on to the police immediately.
The Council of Ministers of 9 December 2009 extended this assistance of the police for the subsequent period until 31 December 2010. Until present, up to 12,000 soldiers have served in this operation.
Since the deployed soldiers do not directly patrol the borderline any longer as between 1990 and 2007, but principally remain in the villages and patrol along the lines of communication in the hinterland, the Austrian Armed Forces’ visibility is enhanced considerably. This has also a positive impact on the feeling of security in the local population. Through the daily patrols, a number of criminal actions were observed and reported to the police, which often led to arrests. In other cases the police was able to successfully start proceedings or intervene in a preventive way.
In some of the observed situations, the soldiers could provide first aid to those in need and, by noticing disasters early, prevent them or minimise damages. These achievements won the Armed Forces the respect of the officials and of the police as well as a high acceptance by the population.
1.2 Other assistance operations
In 2009 the Austrian Armed Forces handled a situation where there was the danger of a terrorist attack based on Anthrax. On 21 April 2009 a platoon of soldiers assisted the police in the Province of Upper Austria in searching for a hidden weapons cache.
1.3 Disaster relief assistance operations
In 2009 the heavy February snowfalls and the heavy summer rainfalls caused the most intensive disaster relief efforts of the year. After a period of heavy rains, the floods caused severe destruction as of 23 June 2009, affecting chiefly the Provinces of Lower Austria and Styria.
Overcome the masses of snow of February 2009 required up to 237 soldiers along the Austrian portion of the Alps in between Tschagguns, Vorarlberg Province, and Anna-berg, Lower Austria Province. The main tasks consisted of searching for people buried underneath avalanches and of shovelling huge amounts of snow off roofs. One of the main efforts consisted of providing air transport to the avalanche commissions assessing the threat posed by the snow situation and of providing air support to people and villages that were snowed in. In this way, in 74 flights eleven helicopters transported 18 tons of material and 604 passengers. Thirty of these flights transported the specialists that were in charge of the controlled blasting of dangerous snowfields.
The village of Radmer, Province of Styria, was given airlift on 25 February 2009, because snow and avalanches had obstructed all landlines of communication.
During the heavy rains of mid-June 2009, starting with 23 June 2009, the civilian authorities requested disaster relief assistance from the Austrian Armed Forces. The district of Feldbach, Province of Styria, for example, suffered 20 per cent of the average yearly rainfall total in one night. At first, standing units out of the provincial military commands of Lower Austria, Styria and Burgenland were deployed. As the disaster relief operation continued, the need for more qualified specialists, such as engineers, became obvious. Much of the necessary reconstruction work had to be done under severely dangerous circumstances, requiring real specialists and specialised equipment, which is the essence of the engineer corps. Especially the Wachau region and the foothills of the Alps in the Province of Lower Austria and the districts of Feldbach and Köflach, Styria Province, have to be pointed out in this regard. The assistance operation along with the reconstruction efforts was terminated on 6 November 2009. In the course of the efforts more than 2,700 soldiers were deployed and 23,000 man-days of hard work were made.
In addition, the aerial forces supported the civilian authorities by flying 60 hours for reconnaissance and liaison purposes. In general, the soldiers of the Austrian Armed Forces, especially the engineer corps and the rotary wing aviation, provided enormous and varying support to civilians during 2009, exactly like in the years before.
The evaluation of the last ten years (see table p. 5) clearly shows the different requirements by the individual natural catastrophes. In general, wide-ranging incidents called for large numbers of soldiers in a short timeframe, whereas scattered natural incidents frequently required specialised soldiers with special equipment over long periods of time until mission accomplishment.
1.4 Operational aspects of airspace surveillance and airspace security
In the timeframe of 1 January to 1 December 2009, AUSTRO CONTROL, in charge of civilian air-traffic control in Austria, in cooperation with the MoD permitted roughly 23,900 flights from foreign military aircraft, of which roughly 8,700 flights were actually carried out.
Military Priority "Alpha" (Prio "A”) Flights These flights are conducted for military purposes, directly supporting national defence in the airspace of the respective country in accordance with national law.
In 2009 a total of 49 Prio "A”-Flights were conducted.
Of those flights, 30 aircraft violated the national airspace due to communication loss with civilian ground control (identification task).
In total, 18 air patrols were executed. When incidents are expected, military aircraft can be deployed and kept ready as air patrols in order to cut the reaction time. In January 2009 six air patrols were ordered within the framework of the airspace security operation DÄDALUS, supporting the World Economic Forum in Davos. The remaining 12 air patrols were ordered in connection with COMLOSS and due to violations of the Austrian airspace.
In 2009 one escort was conducted. The President of the Republic of Mali was escorted from the border to Vienna International Airport on the occasion of his visit to Austria.
COMLOSS/NORAC In total 19 aircraft were intercepted after losing communication with civilian air-traffic control (COMLOSS - Lost Communication, NORAC - No Radio Contact), thus posing a threat to the safety of the Austrian airspace.
1.5 Support to the public and the civilian sectors
The 2008 operations review described the principles for the support of the public and the civilian sectors. Also events were supported, ranging from the Austrian Skiing Association, through training of the civilian search and rescue dogs earmarked for common operations within AFDRU, to the organisation of charitable events and special activities by laying D-bridges and surveying the borderlines. In eleven operations D-bridges were laid, amounting to roughly 29,000 working hours, at the request of civilian authorities for the public benefit. Moreover, on the basis of an inter-ministerial agreement in seven different operational taskings the Austrian borderlines were surveyed in roughly 4,800 working hours.
The following chart presents the services according to the provinces in which they were rendered.