Maintainer’s quick thinking results in mission-ready aircraft

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Marelise Wood
  • 352nd Special Operations Group Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  It's only been a short while since Tech. Sgt. Gregory Bantilan reported for duty here, and already his name has been elevated to his leadership at least twice.

Sergeant Bantilan, an electrical and environmental craftsman, was recently assigned to the 352nd Special Operations Maintenance Squadron, and within weeks, he volunteered to don the red suit and spread holiday cheer at his squadron children's holiday party.

He has now also earned the 352nd Special Operations Group Commander's and Command Chief's coins for his quick thinking. As part of the maintenance crew working on one of his group's MC-130 aircraft, Sergeant Bantilan encountered a problem that had been hindering the aircraft's repair for more than 30 days.

The landing gear warning horn, responsible for alerting the aircrew when the aircraft is approaching at landing speed without the landing gear correctly extended, had malfunctioned. The replacement part, which took more than 30 days to arrive, was also faulty. The maintenance team faced an additional extended wait for the arrival of another replacement part, which meant having the aircraft grounded for even more time.

For Sergeant Bantilan, this was not an option. He knew there had to be a better way, and he found it. He decided to troubleshoot the part to find exactly what was causing the malfunction. He narrowed down the problem to a capacitor. This is where the faulty replacement part came in handy. While as a whole the replacement horn was unusable, the capacitor in it was working fine. Sergeant Bantilan knew he was onto something and there was only one thing left to do.

Making a change of this nature, to a particular part, and then using it on the aircraft is something that requires authorization. Sergeant Bantilan was well aware of this and made sure to follow procedure. He enlisted the help of his squadron's technical representative and submitted an Engineer Technical Assistance Request to secure the proper permissions to proceed with his proposal to combine the operable portions of the two faulty components into a working unit.

His request was approved, and in less than two hours, he replaced the non-working capacitor with the functioning one, tested it on the aircraft and returned the aircraft to flying status.

"Sergeant Bantilan didn't let our supply system needlessly ground a critical aircraft for an extended period of time," said Col. Gary McCollum, 352nd SOG commander. "Rather, he leveraged his ingenuity and followed the proper approval process to quickly and safely return a low-density/high-demand aircraft to mission-ready status. We call his now-operable landing gear warning assembly the 'Frankenhorn.' In short, Sergeant Bantilan demonstrated exactly the skill, precision and innovation we expect from all our Air Commando maintainers."