Turning over ELTs to the Cops

[Flying Pig]

I was reading the post about the alerting system, and I thought......

The thing I don't get about ELT's being turned over to the Sheriff, is that many don't have any DF equipment, and 99% of our Deputies in my 900 man Dept wouldn't even know what an ELT is.  Not to mention how to find one or even what to do if they did find it.   

Prior to rejoining CAP, I was at work and we received a message on my computer in my patrol car put out department wide as a "Be on the Look out"  for an ELT going of in the vicinity of a local airport.  And the message was sent "Per LTC XXXX, Civil Air Patrol, Mission Incident Commander."   Does anyone work with an LE agency that can actually DF an ELT?  Other guys and the Sgt. knew I was a pilot and started sending me messages asking me what it was all about and what did an "ELT" look like.

We basically had a couple patrol units put in the Lat Long into our GPS's and we were reasonably able to determine it was on the airport.   About 5 hours later when our helicopter crew came on, they flew the area to make sure there wasn't a Cessna buried in the fields nearby.  That was the extent of our DF capabilities for a pretty modern department.  So I would say understanding your local Dept's DF'ing capabilities would be a good thing to know.

[RiverAux]

In my area some of the county emergency managers could give it a go with a regular radio receiver, but usually turning it over to the cops means that they might call the airport manager to take a look around. 

[wuzafuzz]

Much of the time the Sheriff has the legal responsibility for SAR in their county.  Having said that, I've never seen sworn personnel track ELT's.  Usually they delegated the task to the Sheriff's volunteer SAR team or the local airport staff.  CAP was a distant 3rd place.  

Unfortunately there were times coordination between on-duty coppers, SAR, and CAP was nonexistent.  Improving those relationships would provide a lot of bang for the buck so everyone can do what they do best.  Getting past "ownership" of emergency response was the biggest challenge in my experience.  I dealt with a local SAR team who didn't want to "share" ELT's with CAP or airport staff.  It was their gig and they wanted the call outs.  Eventually we created an MOU that defined responsibilities and improved coordination.

[mikeylikey]

My Sate gave a grant to all County Airports for the purpose of purchasing DF equipment.  So, 1 week later the number of ELT missions dropped bigtime.  Occasionally we will still get a ELT mission, but only after the Airport has closed etc. 

[Eclipse]

^^ Since AFRCC and CAP are the lead agencies in ELT searches, how can another agency "refuse to share"?

Sound to me like a big C-F caused CAP to be kicked out officially, forcing local agencies to become the local alerted responders, because otherwise they wouldn't even know about them.

[wuzafuzz]

^^ Since AFRCC and CAP are the lead agencies in ELT searches, how can another agency "refuse to share"?

Sound to me like a big C-F caused CAP to be kicked out officially, forcing local agencies to become the local alerted responders, because otherwise they wouldn't even know about them.

How can an agency refuse to share?  I don't mean to be flippant, but all it takes is for the SAR folks say "Call us for ELT's."  Sometimes there is also the mindset that "we are 'more official' than you are" or the Sheriff's SAR team says "Hey why can't we do that?"  Since they work for the Sheriff who has primary SAR responsibility under state law, everyone else has to play nice and take the scraps that get tossed their way.  Even on an AFAM we had to cooperate with the Sheriff's Dept.  It may have been been productive, but it was real.  Fortunately, that was a long time ago and isn't a concern where I live now.

As far as who gets alerted and in what order, as an airport patrol officer I often received calls directly from AFRCC even though there was a CAP squadron based on the same airport.  AFRCC sometimes called us because we could find an ELT before CAP got out of bed and drove to the airport.  CAP wasn't officially kicked out but the early bird got the worm. 

Does AFRCC HAVE to call CAP if they know of another resource in the area?  It wouldn't be a big stretch for them to have a database of resources sorted by location.

I bet the circumstances are similar in other places.

[KyCAP]

AFRCC calls the primary agency listed for ELT's that is delegated by the State or Commonwealth in which the ELT is thought to be going off in.

ie.  The state you live in could decide to NOT delegate ELT / airplace search and locate operations searches to CAP (I believe) and delegate to whoever they want.


From AFRCC web site:
http://www.acc.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3721

"State Agencies

Most of the states in the inland area have a specific responsibility for search and rescue. This may be a state agency without aircraft, or in other cases, a complete well trained responsive SAR organization with state-salaried mission coordinators and state-owned aircraft. AFRCC involvement with specific states differs depending upon the states assumption of SAR responsibility. Established SAR agreements between each state's governers and the executive agent for inland SAR "spell out" exactly who is responsible for the various emergencies and which agency will assume mission control.

When state SAR agencies elect to retain SAR mission responsibility, the AFRCC will continue to assist by coordinating the response of requested federal resources. For a complete listing of state emergency management agency web sites, click here.

In KY the Emergency Operations Plan for Airplace "Search" specifically delegates this task back to AFRCC and CAP until "located".

Section III - C Section L http://kyem.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/197CC054-C079-4877-BE2F-BAA237CDB07D/0/ANNEXLALL.pdf

[PA Guy]

Yrs ago I helped train the San Bernardino County Sheriff, in SoCal, SAR teams in how to DF.  They had DF equipment but had little interest in it.  I also recall Riverside Mtn. Rescue had DF capability but they also had little interest in using it.

I worked several missions with San Bernardino County Sheriff where all they wanted from CAP was our DF/ELT expertise.

[JohnKachenmeister]

I had a late-night ELT alert a few months ago, and tracked it to a house with a boat in the driveway.  I did not want to prosecute the search onto private property at 0400 local time wearing BDU in Florida without police assistance.  The sheriff responded, and I explained what was going on.  He had no clue what I was talking about.

He woke up the homeowner, pointed at me, and said:  "This is Major Kachenmeister from the Air Force Patrol.  He'll tell you what he wants."

[Flying Pig]

HAAAAAA!!!!!  Nothing like having the cops pave the way.

[isuhawkeye]

Also,

It is practice for RCC to call local airports before SAR resources are deployed,

[wingnut]

in 2 more years this all goes away,  the AFRCC will no longer respond to 121.5 ELTs going off, The Coast Guard has said the same thing.

[sardak]

The Cospas-Sarsat system stops listening to 121.5/243.0 MHz on February 1, 2009.

In answer to a question at last week's national state SAR coordinators meeting, the AFRCC/CC said that 121.5 reports received by other means will still be investigated and missions initiated as required.

Mike

[JoeTomasone]

And as pointed out in other threads, this doesn't make UDF missions go away for several reasons.

[calguy]

In California, the Sheriff of the county is responsible for SAR in his county.  Most departments yield to CAP for ELTs but if CAP cannot respond, it is their problem.  That is one of the reasons the State OES in California give CAWG almost $100,000 a year.  Sadly, CAWG is all too often not up for the missions.  Lately, more traffic is saying "mission was turned over to the sheriif due to a lack of resources".  I know as a WMAO, I had over a dozens ICs on a 24/7 list that would NEVER take a mission.  It all falls on the backs of 2 or 3 default ICs and a few ground and aircrews.  The CHP has DF in some of thier aircraft as well as some sheriff's air units.  That $100,000 could buy df units for all the sheriff departments and CAP could get out of the ELT business.  I am sure we could train their folks and be done with it and we could get rid of a few old aircraft since we won't be needing those for SAR too.  Win-Win!  Remember, after Feb 2009, 121.5 ELTs will still be going off, we just won't have SARSAT hits to narrow the area down.  Since we won't fly at night or in IMC, all the more to get out of the ELT business. :clap:

[RiverAux]

It sounds like CA Wing has a serious problem and needs to start cleaning out a lot of deadweight ICs that need to be dropped back to OSC.  Sure, I'd hate to give up a qualified IC, but it sounds like your current large list isn't really helping you much. 

Hopefully when ELT missions drop off a bit, some of the ICs will be a little more willing to take a call.  When you're getting called on a weekly basis, I can see why many would lose enthusiasm fairly quickly. 

[wingnut]

CAlguy your suffering from ROTORBRAIN

Lets do the math! the 100,000 is not just for ELTs, it is for all the things we do for the State and the Air Force.

Calguy, what is the cost of a Huey to operate for 4 hours, would $4,000 about cover it? let me see, the fossett mission would have Bankrupted both LA county and San Diego county.  Four or five ELTs in a month would cost the Sheriff at least $20,000, do you think they would be any better than us.

Lets talk about repairing what we have, yes the 406  will change what we do, but as you well know most of the downed aircraft this year had "NO ELT" activated. The big question is how do we clean up out problems and not throw out the baby with the water.

Sorry but one last thing, $100,000 will buy what?  maybe five Becker DF units?

[calguy]

Many wings and counties have HAMS, explorer scouts, MRA teams doing the ELT searches as well as the volunteer sheriff SAR teams.  Little cost there.  As far as Hueys and the like, those aircraft are already budgeted for and are already available for patrol duties, SAR, transports etc.  The State OES provides CAWG the monies to provide support to the State through OES missions. ie  SAR, dog teams, OES transports.  $100,000 for Beckers would be nice but our problem is not equipment, but people willing to do Emergency Services.  I think CAWG needs to either step up to the plate or yield to the other SAR teams.  If Fossett was just a no name pilot, do you think we would have been able to support the mission the way NV & CAWG did?

[wingnut]

but the Counties are broke, gas is $7.00 per gallon, yes I guess the fire departments are looking for anything to do, why we could use a Huey to get cats out of trees. . .

Maybe we should just fix the broken part of the CAP on the West Coast, but I fail to understand why we as an organization have allowed so many ELT false alarms, if you are in any city in California and your Burglar alarms falsely you will be fined after a false alarm that is negligence, bad mistake having CAP becoming a FREE ELT maintenance company for pilots and Boaters.

hey if you have 20 elts going off every 3  or 4 months and no plane crash, remember chicken little, people who volunteer for CAP are human and they get burned out, the system has not taken into account the personal factor, MORAL is in the doldrums, if CAWG was a "real" military unit there would be a newspaper reporter all over them.

I am glad I live in another wing

[isuhawkeye]

The Huey's are budgeted and paid for,  For the most part they are not looking to save any money on their program.  What they are doing is looking to justify the expense.  That means grabbing on to most any mission that comes along. 

Most municipal aviation programs are constantly justifying funding, and they look for any excuse to fly.