FBI elite dive team shows its resolve
Squad lends hand as search extended for missing child
The San Antonio Police Department this week called on an FBI dive team to help in the case of missing 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil.
And while a two-day search of a creek bed in the Medical Center area did not yield conclusive evidence in the girl’s disappearance, the presence of this elite team — which has searched oceans and rivers in airline disaster and serial murder investigations — indicates the degree to which local law enforcement is prioritizing its efforts to find her.
The FBI’S Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team, or USERT, from Washington, D.C., searched the creek near 5700 Babock Road — just a few miles from Lina’s home — on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Lina disappeared on Dec. 20 from a playground at her gated apartment complex at the Villas Del Cabo apartments, 9400 Fredricksburg Road.
San Antonio police said they brought in the FBI search team to broaden their search for Lina. Police said a lead led them to the creek.
The FBI’S USERT consists of trained divers who use high-tech equipment to search for evidence underwater.
These agents search for things as big as a jet engine and as small as a bullet that may be hidden in water. From weapons to a plane’s black box to human remains, the dive team’s efforts to recover evidence can be critical to an investigation, the FBI said in a statement to the Express-news.
Unlike other FBI units, USERT is not a tactical team and more like a military dive team.
Working in dark environments, the divers use special equipment like sonar and metal detectors to search for hidden evidence. Their equipment eliminates the need for light, which is critical because the particulate matter churned up from walking on the water bottom diffuses any light that would be emitted.
USERT has four teams based around the country in the FBI’S Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C., field offices. Each team has 16 members who serve in the general territory, though divers can fill in on other teams as needed.
The members help in federal,
and local law enforcement cases, including some high-profile cases such as the emergency landing of a passenger plane — US Airways Flight 1549 — on the Hudson River in 2009 and the Israel Keyes serial murder investigation in 2011.
USERT has assisted in situations such as when TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean in 1996. Divers scoured a 40-squaremile patch of ocean floor to recover the remains of 230 passengers and most of the plane.
Being a part of the team is demanding not only because of the dark and difficult conditions the divers work in, but also the physical demands of the job. The weight of the diver's equipment, helmet and other gear can exceed 100 pounds on the surface, and walking on the bottom with a current as slow as 3 or 4 knots — roughly the speed the Mississippi River — is similar to jogging on the surface.
There are three configurations that USERT uses when its members dive, destate pending on various circumstances: contaminated water, which requires a protective suit and helmet with air supplied from the surface; normal conditions that don't require a helmet, with air provided from the surface through a mask; and scuba conditions that require a tank, regulator and mask.
Anyone who has information on Lina is asked to call 210-207-7660.