Found aircraft debris marking

[SABRE17]

Hey all,

My Dad posed a really great question to me today, if an aircraft is found and the debris cannot be removed, be it on a mountain, deep in the woods etc, what, if any, is the standard procedure for marking the debris area so someone does not come along and call 911 on a wreck?

(might be out side CAP's realm but I didn't know if such a procedure existed. And doubt I'd ever need to use it in CAP)

[Eclipse]

Two pieces (though there's no way to prevent people from calling 911).

A large Yellow or White "X" or similar is supposed to be painted on the wreckage in a way that is clearly visible, especially from the air. That's not always possible.



The AFRCC maintains a database of previously located crashes, and in fact asks for assistance in pinpointing locations:
http://www.1af.acc.af.mil/units/afrcc/annualreports/statecrashlocator/index.asp

We're discussing using that as a mission this year - locate wreckage and get new GPS hits. Most states have a few that the AFRCC
would like more accurate reporting on.

[PHall]

There's a couple of wrecked cars that are waaaayyy down the side of the mountain (as in 500 feet plus) in the hills above Glendora, California.
They generate two or three calls a year. And these wrecks have been there for over 30 years now...

[Brad]

We get calls all the time about wrecked vehicles that we're already aware of from motorists. We simply tell them we have someone enroute, or if it's already been investigated then we simply tell them that, that we are aware of the vehicle and we've already investigated it. Takes about 5 seconds if we know about it already. If it was done from the other shift though, then usually at shift change we get briefed like, "Hey if you get a call about a vehicle matching description X at location Y, it's already been worked."

I was driving home one morning after night shift, and one of the county fire departments got toned out for an 18-wheeler wreck. I knew exactly what the call was as HP had investigated it like 4 hours earlier but the truck driver was making arrangements to pick up the semi later through a tow company coming from a ways off. So I imply got on the radio (as a firefighter, not a CAP member) and told Central to have them disregard, the wreck had already been investigated.

[Flying Pig]

We had some hikers report they had found a plane crash at about the 8000ft level in the Sierra Wilderness.  We were pretty confident we knew which wreckage it was, but flew up to take a look anyway.  It was a Navy T34 that had crashed in the 1970s.  As was stated above, you can mark them all you want, people will still call in.  But big a big painted X is always good.  But I would use a spray can..... not a 1970's paint can and a brush

[FlyTiger77]

The AFRCC maintains a database of previously located crashes, and in fact asks for assistance in pinpointing locations:
http://www.1af.acc.af.mil/units/afrcc/annualreports/statecrashlocator/index.asp

I wonder if 1AF is still updating the database. I looked at the reports for three different states and they each showed an "as of" date that is nearly three years old.

[Eclipse]

I can tell you the AFRCC still uses it, and I would imagine that a more current copy could be obtained direct from them.

During the BISC last year Dan Conley indicated that many of the wrecks are "near" the indicated coordinates, but depending on
when they were marked and what the tech was at the time, not all of them are spot on.