The Grifone exercise took place between June 9th and 13th, 2025, during which the various personnel faced a variety of missions, with over 80 sorties and 48 hours of flight time. The exercise is a collaboration between the Italian Air Force and the CNSAS (National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps), involing approximately 500 participants.

During the missions the “Soccorso Alpino” personnel had to face a mission with the aim of recovering a mannequin and the missions did not end until the mannequin was found and succesfully recovered.

As daylight fell on the airfield, the lights were turned on to allow the Air Force, the Navy and the Air Force to carry out night operations in the high mountains, which lasted until around midnight.

During the day, inside the airfield, we had the opportunity to observe emergency tests on board a helicopter, jointly between the Italian Air Force with the HH139 and the Italian Red Cross through the Sondrio and Morbegno committees with doctors, nurses, instruments and equipment.

The PAO (director of the operations) told us that the exercise, rather than serving as training, was used to understand how the emergency machine worked, therefore setting up a camp of this kind in a short time and managing everything.