Another reason to spend time searching near the airport

[RiverAux]

It has been known for a long time that one of the best places to look for a missing aircraft is in the immediate vicinity of the departure airport.  A story posted on the web site gives a recent illustration:  http://www.capvolunteernow.com/headline_news.cfm/aerial_search_in_sc_yields_body_of_pilot_missing_for_2_weeks?show=news&newsID=11960

I know that our Wing had a search fairly recently that was resolved in a similar fashion.  While the mission staff had sent a sortie (maybe 2) over that grid it wasn't really treated to any sort of special focus.  Seems to me that it would almost be worth it to keep a plane searching the vicinity of the airport almost full-time unless rock solid information demonstrates that it made it further than that. 

[Ed Bos]

Nice when our doctrine gets a validating shot in the arm once in a while.

[blackrain]

As I posted earlier this year (last winter)we found an airplane crashed about 500 yards off of the departure end of the runway (after a cross country flight he botched the go around apparently) fortunately the only injury was a broken tooth. No missing A/C report just an ELT reported by airliners 100 miles away. We finally tracked the ELT to the airport and naturally assumed it was one of the 2 A/C on the ramp. We managed to fly right over it as it was partially obscured by trees and didn't find it until we landed. That's what we got for assuming

Purposely and thoroughly checking the extended runway center line from both directions at the arrival airport is a good idea too.

[Buzz]

"Search In, Search Out." 

Unless you have something more important to do, if the prop is turning a Scanner or Observer should be looking for anything that doesn't look right.