Weiredest places you have found ELT;s and EPerbs.

[SJFedor]

In the trunk of a car recently stolen from a pilot as the car was being moved around in chop shop being dismantled. The police loved that find.

I'd call that a win.

[es_g0d]

What about landing a GA-8 at night on a grass strip, and having a cop chaufeur you around (and show you his AR-15).  Isn't that a win, too, Steve?

[SJFedor]

What about landing a GA-8 at night on a grass strip, and having a cop chaufeur you around (and show you his AR-15).  Isn't that a win, too, Steve?

Haha. It wasn't night when I landed. Maybe about 20 min before the beginning of civil twilight.

Ok, so, story time. I was up in INWG helping a good friend out with a Wing level aircrew school. Got up there friday to get prepped for the students the next day, which included a flight to Indianapolis to pick up the GA-8, which we were gonna use for scanner training en mass. On the way to Indy Metro, we get a request from approach to listen to 121.5, because several aircraft have been reporting audibles. We're probably 10 miles east of Indy Int'l, at 3000 and descending, so we pop squelch and hear it pretty decently. Mind you, we're still on an A5 SAR/DR training mission number, so we do a few quick wing nulls since the DF was inoperative, and mark our location, and continue on to Indy Metro. When we landed, my friend put a call into the Wing/CC, who in turn put a call into AFRCC to report it. Voila, 09M0494 was born, and we popped out in the GA-8 with a working DF to go ELT hunting.

So, we first go to our first heard position and reacquire the signal. It starts to lead us towards a small airport east of Indy, but then takes us past it, more towards the north, in the Mount Comfort airport area. As we get close to mount comfort, it turns us more eastward, with a continued increase in signal strength. We end up over the town of Greenfield, with a blaring signal. Pope Airfield is right there, which is a 2200ft lighted grass strip. From the air, the best we can determine is that it's either on, or very close to, the field, but don't spot any wreckage or any visible signs of distress, as this is a city environment. So, we elect to put the aircraft down and proceed with a ramp check.

We land, notify the IC and ask him to contact the airport manager and local law enforcement, just so they know we're there and we're looking for an ELT. We walked around all the hangars with an airband handheld, and can hear the signal, but not nearly as strong as we could in the air, leading us to believe that it's close, but not on, the field.

At that point, our IC tells us there's a certain NESA ground team guru (not gonna mention his name w/o permission, but he's the bomb) on the way to help us with a ground search, as everyone on the 3 person aircrew is at least UDF, 2 of us GTLs as well. While we're sitting on the bench near the main road that runs next to the airport, we start to hear sirens in the distance. Shortly thereafter, a dozen or so local and county police cars come screaming into the airport, along with 3-4 fire engines and a medic unit. At this point, it's something like 9pm.

So, we manage to get one of the officers stopped, to which one of us asked "someone said the word 'crash' to you, didn't they?" As it turns out, our IC notified the airport manager that we were looking for an ELT in the vicinity of the airport, and she took that to mean that there was a crashed aircraft, and called 911. We explain the situation to the officers and firefighters, to which they laughed a little and most just return to station. However one of the officers stayed with us and offered to help us proceed with our ground search. So, we went and drove around a little with the airband held out the window, listening for the signal to get stronger. We started to get close when the aforementioned GT guru arrived, so we broke off to meet up with him. Shared what we had found, and luckily he had some better DF equipment, so we continued to search.

Ended up finding the signal coming from an auto body shop in the town about 3/4 of a mile west of the airport, which also had lots of power lines all around it, which was doing wonders to carry the signal all over. Local PD was able to contact the owner and requested that he come out and silence the ELT. Owner has a Cessna at the local airport which he was doing an owner assisted annual on, and had pulled the ELT and put it in a box. That box later got kicked, setting off the signal. While waiting, we got to talk to two of the officers, one of which was a SWAT officer for the town, and showed us his rather amazing tactical rifle.

Owner finally showed, we turned the thing off, and began the journey home. But the story of that journey is for another night


So, yes Scott, I guess that would be a win.

[Gunner C]

 :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

[capradiopro]

In a fed ex truck, in the trailer of a crop duster who'd gone on vacation for a week, in an air rescue helicopter doing a transport, in 12 seperate parking spaces at Davis Monthan Air Base, just in the a10's.  In several aircraft brought into the AMARC facility at DM. and in a tripacer stuffed into the garage of a man who said he didn't know anything about aircraft, it must be his neighbors boat.  His kid asked us if the "parts plane" in the garage might be it!
Lt. Col. Bill Croghan

[capradiopro]

i forgot the best one of all.  In a CAP c182 being shown at an air show!
Lt. Col BIll Croghan, CAP

[isuhawkeye]

I heard another story of one that fell off an EC-3 from Offutt.  Apparently it's signal was so strong, it was pinging though a lead lined vault, 50 feet below ground.

I also heard of sledge hammers being used on it (with permission)before AF picked it up....

I dont think the air force ever picked it up.  I believe it is still in CID

I was on that mission. 

How about these

1.  In a UPS truck

2.  In a helicopter on a flat bed truck traveling down the highway

3.  In file cabinets

4.  In a residential garage in a home built under construction

5. 

[Hill CAP]

i forgot the best one of all.  In a CAP c182 being shown at an air show!
Lt. Col BIll Croghan, CAP

BTDT. SFedor and Myself was at the Airshow in Smyrna TN and the Wing ES Director calls Fedor and tells him to turn the ELT in that 182 off.

It was already off kid had flipped the switch on the panel we noticed it and flipped it back to off it was on less then 10 seconds but it is a 406 beacon, AFRCC already picked it up and called NOC.

[Duke Dillio]

Someone old me that they found one transmitting from the emergency rubber raft located near the wing of a C-141 at Peterson AFB.  Apparently it was stowed and when the crew chief opened the hatch, the raft inflated.  I "heard" that it was on top of the wings but I wasn't there so I don't know the whole story.  I think Shane knows the whole thing but I'm not sure...

[PHall]

Someone old me that they found one transmitting from the emergency rubber raft located near the wing of a C-141 at Peterson AFB.  Apparently it was stowed and when the crew chief opened the hatch, the raft inflated.  I "heard" that it was on top of the wings but I wasn't there so I don't know the whole story.  I think Shane knows the whole thing but I'm not sure...

The life raft accessory kits did not contain an ELT. They had survival radios that had to be manually turned on.

The ELT on the C-141 was located in "the bullet" at the front of the horizontal stabilizer. The control switch (ARM/OFF/RESET) for the ELT was located on the Navigator's panel.

[BigMojo]

Navy Sea Cadet's Headquarters...Twice in two weeks. (The second time they asked us to disconnect the battery for them.)

[RiverAux]

Inside an about-to-be crushed aircraft at a salvage yard. Someone forgot to take out the ELT when the bulldozer set about crushing the hulk to recyclable pieces.

I wonder if the ELT could have survived the crushing?

[tarheel gumby]

In the trunk of the car of a deceased CAP Squadron commander. The Squadron in question had been deactivated in the late 1990's or some time before 2001, and all of the squadron's records and lots of other goodies were housed in the commander's house. When the car was sold the family found "CAP gear" in the trunk and called me to come get it. In the trunk of the car I found 2 L-tronics Elpers and 1 ELT.

[Hoorah]

In the trunk of the car of a deceased CAP Squadron commander. The Squadron in question had been deactivated in the late 1990's or some time before 2001, and all of the squadron's records and lots of other goodies were housed in the commander's house. When the car was sold the family found "CAP gear" in the trunk and called me to come get it. In the trunk of the car I found 2 L-tronics Elpers and 1 ELT.

Wholy moly.

[a2capt]

In an aviation life raft repacking/certifying place.  They have more ELTs than most large GA airports in this place. ..and a couple L-Per's on the wall, too.

.. they were off that day, an ELT was going off. As well, the primary simplex frequency we used to use would turn on/off the exterior lighting of the building, and if you keyed up at the gate with the call box, it would open and you could drive right in.

On the same Navy ship, three times in two weeks. The 30 watt one in the stack was open mic'ed. Could "hear" it 30 miles away plain and clear from a high point.

In a pile of pilot gear in the corner of a garage that was right within what turned out to be a deputy sheriff taking out the third hispanic in about a month in a particular neighborhood and they already had heated tensions so the place was all secured for about a square mile. Turned out our ELT was right across the street from where they had a perimeter setup. Our first reaction when we realized that our signal appeared to be coming from within all the closed off streets/police activity, was perhaps.. someone set it off as they were involved in whatever it was that happened that we were not aware of yet. After clearing it with several cops from a neighboring department who called into the center of the mess, we were allowed to proceed.  Turned out, it was a pile of stuff because the guy's aircraft had gotten crashed into and he took all the "loose stuff" out of it and dumped it in the corner of the garage.

A DVD player while it was playing a disc only. We had fun when they, what we figured out later was, changed a movie - after having a steady signal for about 60 minutes it went away and came back when we were about to give up.  We had gone back to a high spot to listen again.

In a burned out Mooney that had basically wing tips, a tail and propeller remaining.  The ELT was all melted onto, the aircraft had been moved several times from the initial crash point (the freeway short of the airport that had closed due to an advancing wild fire near downtown San Diego, in Oct. 2003), onto said airport when the fire cleared, and then again by truck to a near by airport some 10 miles away, and twice within that airport, finally into a hangar to disassemble what was left. Only then did the ELT decide go off.

[ishcable]

 8)located in one of the c-130 sent in to pick up equipment after pres. clinton's summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard.  some very embarrassed usaf pilots.

uscg district one boston commander's office

tracking elt around MV island for almost a day  was stolen and thrown in dumpster picked up by trash truck.  finally located it at the transfer station 

[bosshawk]

Buried under about three feet of garbage in a landfill above Half Moon Bay, Ca at 0200 in the morning.

On a UPS truck at Napa, Ca, after trailing the truck for four or five hours, starting in Holister, Ca.

A signal on 121.5 coming from a game machine at Chuck-E-Cheese in San Jose, Ca.  Name of the game: Search and Rescue.  It was fun going into the place after midnight, with a SJ cop and asking the cleaning crew is we could look around.

An ELT in the back seat of a dentist's car which disappeared around noon and reappeared after 1300.  Turned out that the dentist went home for lunch.

[a2capt]

LOL, Really? in the Search & Rescue game? Funny, I've repaired those and an ELT isn't standard  equipment. Someone surely had a twisted sense of humor.

...the gameplay is pretty far away from SAR as we know it, too More like Zombie blasting Wolf 3D style but with an overhead view, and find your 'victim'.

[Viking flyer]

How about not the weirdest, but the mostest? Noon on Thursday at Lakeland Lender (FL) airport during Sun-n-Fun. It was easy to figure out where they were after the tornado, just look for the upside down aircraft. Must have been 70 + going off. But local law enforcement chased CAP off the field. Couldn't blame them for all the debris and possible fuel spills present. And it didn't really take an L-Per to find most of them.

[JC004]

This topic is back?

Hmm...

I did one with an EPIRB on a Greek oil rig.  The Coast Guard didn't feel like coming up to board the vessel, so they told us to "go for it."

I did one on a Halloween (imagine, walking around in the evening on Halloween in BDUs - "Nice costume! Army guy?!" "No, this is real...").  We tracked the signal to a trailer sitting in a driveway.  We knocked on the door to find the owner (heavily intoxicated male) and his wife.  We told him what we were doing, they opened the trailer, and inside was an ultralight that he had just purchased.  On the aircraft was an EPIRB (yeah) attached with wire ties.  The red light was blinking.  He said that he had been calling the guy who sold it to him about the blinking light but hadn't received a call back.  He indicated that he had purchased the ultralight because he liked the lips design on the parachute.  He didn't know anything about aircraft.  He asked over and over if he was in trouble or receiving a bill from the government, especially after we told him that an aircraft was involved, looking for him.

Philadelphia Police Department helicopter.

A news helicopter (NBC).

A medevac helicopter (Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's PENNSTAR).

EPIRB on a boat that was moving on the back of a vehicle.

I've also DFed from some strange places including the roof of the Marriott at PHL and the ramparts of Fort Mifflin, the fort which defended Philadelphia from the British Navy in 1777, allowing time for the Continental Army to move safely towards Valley Forge, where they would remain for the British occupation of Philadelphia.  BTW, it's a very interesting place and very creepy at night (it has been on Ghost Hunters).  You can still, on the walls that remain, see the marks in the walls from the British siege. 

-----
More normal stuff:

• I had the typical EPIRB in a garage once.
• I did an ELT on a Canadian private jet at Philadelphia International.
• Several of your average aircraft on a ramp on in a hanger.
• A mission on squadron HQ move day, after we'd be moving things all day, which turned out to be a Distress.
• ELT at an airport.  The local squadron (Hazelton) chose not to respond due to a unit activity early the next morning (some kind of support for something like a race).  We had to drive over an hour from an airshow with a team of cadets from random units.  While we were waiting at the airport, the squadron members arrived and said "what are YOU doing here?" Uhhhh...nothing...just your job.