Turning over ELTs to the Cops

[JohnKachenmeister]

To the topic at hand:

How many times do you think the Local PD knows what an ELT is?
Or rather... of all the times the AFRCC calls PD instead of us, how much time is spent on the phone with the desk Sgt. explaining the situation?

Sidenote: Kach... that website is cute but disturbing. I > HOPE < your wife created it and not Aussie's "People Daddy"   

My daughter put up the graphics.  I wrote the "About me" based on what Aussie told me.  I also selected the music.

[Flying Pig]

To the topic at hand:

How many times do you think the Local PD knows what an ELT is?
Or rather... of all the times the AFRCC calls PD instead of us, how much time is spent on the phone with the desk Sgt. explaining the situation?

Sidenote: Kach... that website is cute but disturbing. I > HOPE < your wife created it and not Aussie's "People Daddy"   

I would say the vast majority of cops have no idea what an ELT is, and that if AFRCC called the watch commander, the WC would probably hang up on them thinking it was a prank call!

[RiverAux]

I would predict that many of them would think that there was an actual plane crash and scramble the whole whole department.

[JohnKachenmeister]

To train a new force, in this case all the cops in the country, to deal with ELT's would be a monster of a committment.  Why bother to do that, when we already exist?

[isuhawkeye]

[Johnny Yuma]

Here in KSWG CAP's the Agency on ELT's. The only other agency that has a clue what an ELT is would be the Highway Patrol as they're the lead investigating agency for all aviation accidents in the state. They work up the initial aircraft accidents and work with the FAA/NTSB.

Usually any ELT run after dark involves Law Enforcement. If nothing else the IC's brief the on duty shift commander as to what's going on. Any knocking on doors after dark especially involve the cops. Once they're on site, you explain to them what an ELT does, that it's more than likely a false alarm but the USAF wants it turned off as it's causing problems then they're usually on board.

One IC learned his lesson a couple years ago. We worked an ELT mission not too far away from my city where the ground guys couldn't get a fix and the aircraft could only hear it weakly. They got us kinda close when we realized we were going to have to start knocking on doors at 0200. I called the Sheriff only to find that an aircraft had gone down earlier in the day and the pilot walked away Ok. The KHP trooper couldn't find the ELT. Had the IC made one phone call we'd have had this wrapped up in 45 minutes versus 5 hours. The reason for the weak signal - antenna on the belly, buried 4 inches into the Kansas prairie.

We also have a couple private airstrips where it's SOP that if there's an ELT going off there we wait for the cops, period. The owner's a real anti-government nutjob who literally hates anyone or anything in a uniform. I've had to deal with him a couple times on ELT missions and always involved the cops.