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An interesting place for an ELT...

Started by BigMojo, January 07, 2008, 05:08:25 PM

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BigMojo

Got called out on a standard Non-Distress ELT mission last night...With the shear quantity of boats and private aircraft here in South Florida, we get these on a regular basis. This was the first time though to try out my new DF gear. I now have a the VK3YNG MK4 Sniffer and a 3 element YAGI from Arrow Antenna, and a rubber duck for close in work. Practicing with the training ELT, this combination has been spot on, and I can hand the unit to someone with no experience and they'll walk right to the beacon. (Highly recommend this combo, it is VERY intuitive, and the combination of auto-attenuation and a signal strength meter, let you know you are undeniably on the right or wrong track)

Anyways...

Back to my story...We get the call that the ELT is in the vicinity of FLL (Ft. Lauderdale International), while en route we get updated coordinates putting it about a mile north of the airport. I think to myself, greeeeeeat...as this area is a combination of Marine Maintenance/Shipyards, and countless private homes on finger canals with private vessels. I'm gearing up in my head that this could be a long night.

As we approach the coordinates we acquire signal and continue to move to the exact spot to get a bearing. I get out the Sniffer with the YAGI and proceed to get a bearing. I have a mid-level signal level so I know it's between and 1-2 miles if exposed and 1/4 to 1/2 mile if buried in a dumpster, cabin and building. We relocate to another location to get another bearing to attain a triangulate point. From here we continue on foot, and our equipment leads us to a very stark building with a large "mast" of flags out front. After circling the building we come to the conclusion that it is in the back-left corner beyond a shadow of a doubt. (10 min on scene and we were certain of location, a new record for me). Well, we proceed to the front of the building to try and see if there's anyone home. As we come around to the front of the building, we all have a good little laugh as we realize we are at the US Naval Sea Cadet Training Center.

Our next problem, no contact information...Broward County Sheriff has no emergency contact...Their website has no phone contact. I call my girlfriend, and she uses her skills of deduction to google the Lt. Cmdr that is in charge of the facility. No answer on his home line. After trying many other methods in vain, we try calling again, and get his wife. After not being sure who we were or what we were doing she reluctantly gave us her husbands cell number as he was not home. We call, and get ahold of the Lt. Cmdr, inform him on who we are and the situation.
He says "Yes, we have an old ELT that we use for training, but its deactivated, so it can't be ours, are you sure?"
We reply, "Yes, we are very certain, do you store it in the SE corner of the building?"
After a LONG pause he responds, "Why yes, um, that's where it is, I saw it there earlier today."
Well, Sir, we need you or someone you designate to come down here and let us in so we can deactivate it.
"Well, I guess I'll be there in 40 min."

Lt.Cmdr, shows up and sure enough, there's the beacon in the back corner of the back office, right where we said it would be. It had tipped over and the worn out spring on the switch had activated it. The strobe no longer worked and in test mode it showed as being dead. (Had an expiration of 09/97). We deactivated it, and told the Lt.Cmdr that he needs to register the beacon, so this does not happen again, and to be 100% certain it doesn't, remove the battery. Being who they are, we left him to make the decision on his own, but with all the information he needs, and out contact info if he has any further questions.

The look on his face was priceless seeing a cadet with gear in hand lead himself, me and another senior right to the ELT. I would have never guessed that a Sea Cadet base would have, A.) A functional, unregistered beacon, B.) That it had an expired battery, or C.) that they would not have it in a secure location to prevent accidental activation. (I also wish we had a base as nice as theirs!)

I apologize for being long winded, but I'm a PAO, it's my nature to tell stories. So where's the weirdest place you've tracked down an ELT?
Ben Dickmann, Capt, CAP
Emergency Services Officer
Group 6, Florida Wing

♠SARKID♠

QuoteAs we come around to the front of the building, we all have a good little laugh as we realize we are at the US Naval Sea Cadet Training Center.

:D BWAAAhahahahahaha
Great story, thats definitely a unique one!

I haven't had any particularly odd ones, but cap-es.net has nice list of ways to hide an ELT for advanced searchers.  I like the underwater one

sardak

Registration only exists for 406 MHz beacons, and is mandatory by law.  So if they have an unregistered 406 beacon...

Since they have this old "deactivated" beacon for training but don't seem to know much about it, I see a good joint training opportunity for your squadron.

As for weird places, there was the Goodwill store, swap meet, United Airlines flight attendant training swimming pool, etc.

Mike

jeders

I'm not totally sure on this, but isn't it against the law to use an actual emergency beacon for anything other than an emergency?
If you are confident in you abilities and experience, whether someone else is impressed is irrelevant. - Eclipse

BigMojo

It was an unregistered 406 beacon  ;D They did not intentionally activate it. I think it tipped over when someone slammed the door it was next to, the impact with the ground flipped the switch to "On" we were able to replicate that scenario on-site when trying to figure out what happened.

The Lt. Cmdr did mention wanting to talk about doing something joint training wise.

It was one of these monsters, an Alden Satfind 406 ME, about 2 foot high, and 8-9" in diameter at its largest girth.
Ben Dickmann, Capt, CAP
Emergency Services Officer
Group 6, Florida Wing

Cecil DP

I recall when I was on MAWG staff having one of our staff members chase a UPS truck with an activated ELT from just off Hanscom AFB all the way to Maine.
Michael P. McEleney
LtCol CAP
MSG  USA Retired
GRW#436 Feb 85

SJFedor

Quote from: BigMojo on January 07, 2008, 10:15:01 PM
It was an unregistered 406 beacon  ;D They did not intentionally activate it. I think it tipped over when someone slammed the door it was next to, the impact with the ground flipped the switch to "On" we were able to replicate that scenario on-site when trying to figure out what happened.

The Lt. Cmdr did mention wanting to talk about doing something joint training wise.

It was one of these monsters, an Alden Satfind 406 ME, about 2 foot high, and 8-9" in diameter at its largest girth.


That's one of those boat mounted EPIRBs, not a traditional airplane ELT, like most of us were thinking  ;D

Some of those also have flip sensors on them. They're mounted upside down on the boat, and if it capsizes, it triggers. Or, if someone knocks it over....

Woulda been even better if you had an aircraft overhead to point to, and educate the commander on how much fun it is to wander around and find these oopses.  ;D

Steven Fedor, NREMT-P
Master Ambulance Driver
Former Capt, MP, MCPE, MO, MS, GTL, and various other 3-and-4 letter combinations
NESA MAS Instructor, 2008-2010 (#479)

BigMojo

Yeah...it most definetly is an OLDER boat mounted EPIRB...looking back at my text I can see how people might be led to think it was an aircraft ELT. Most of our missions these days are actually to shut down EPIRB's that have been thrown away, given-away, forgotten, etc. This model in particular didn't have the Mercury switch (Inverted mount, when righted it activates), but has a manual switch (reason for activation) and also has a water-activated/immersion auto switch. The idea with this one is to grab the small line wrapped around the middle, and throw overboard. Tie off to yourself or to life raft, that way the EPIRB has a clear view of the sky. We were about to launch an aircraft on this one, but the IC decided not to.

The commander could see how excited we were to be out and about on a Sunday night...and he was royally embarrassed that our cadets found and had to deal with an Oops by his cadets.
Ben Dickmann, Capt, CAP
Emergency Services Officer
Group 6, Florida Wing

BigMojo

UPDATE

Get a call for a mission Saturday night from my CC...We get together and plot the coordinates, lo and behold, right in the same neck of the woods as this mission. My CC and I place a $10 bet that it's the same EPIRB...

We decide to start our search from the Sea Cadet building...upon arriving we have a very strong signal, and determine that yup, same building, same location. After getting a hold of the Commander, he decides to send his XO this time.

XO arrives, and lets us in, we go straight to the back office, and there's the EPIRB, tipped over, switch flipped to the on position. All this after the commander got a 15min "talking to" by the IC last time over the phone, about registering the beacon and if it's not being actively used to remove the battery....

Well, this time, I crack the EPIRB open and cut the battery leads and remove the battery, as we gave them a chance to do so last time. Warned him that if someone reconnects a new battery to it, and we get called out again, we're turning it over to the FCC, and it will get monumentally more expensive, and they are much less forgiving....

Ben Dickmann, Capt, CAP
Emergency Services Officer
Group 6, Florida Wing

cnitas

Just think of all the finds you could have gotten your new trainees by letting this go off ....over and over and over...   ;D
Mark A. Piersall, Lt Col, CAP
Frederick Composite Squadron
MER-MD-003

NIN

We had one once where it led us to a skating rink. 

We go to the ticket booth (me in jungle fatigues, toting an Elper) and ask the woman behind the glass "Pardon me, ma'am, does anybody here own an airplane?"

She says "Well, yeah, the owner does. But its not here."

I'm thinking "Well no @#$%& lady..."

The owner comes downstairs, and we're real cordial and stuff. I said "I understand that you own an airplane, sir. Do you have the ELT here?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I just changed the battery in it."

"Can we see it sir?"  He leads us upstairs, commenting about how he tested it at the top of the hour and he was sure that it was turned off.

I turn up the volume on the Elper, on which I've slipped a rubber duck, and its going just flat out bannanas.  We get to this conference room and there is the ELT on the table.  The owner says "See the switch is in the OFF <click> position."  As soon as he clicks that switch, the Elper goes from swept tone to dead. His eyes bug out of his head.

"Uh, I thought it was off."

We gave him the usual "If you crash we'll gladly dash" lecture and depart.

Funny thing was, just prior to finding the skating rink were were at this gas station at a nearby intersection getting gas and I turned the DF on for giggles and it was blowing me out of the car it was so strong (I could barely get the sensitivity turned down enough to DF it, that's how strong it was). I hop out of the car and do a 360 sweep in the parking lot.

The gas station attendant says "What are you looking for, Martians?" 

My CO and my group commander who are with me are both active-duty AF security forces-types in their short-sleeve blues. They came right from work to link up on this one. My group CC, ever looking for the perfect joke, looks around conspiratorially and says "Uh, yeah.. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that to yourself, though."

Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
I have no responsibilities whatsoever
I like to have Difficult Adult Conversations™
The contents of this post are Copyright © 2007-2024 by NIN. All rights are reserved. Specific permission is given to quote this post here on CAP-Talk only.

cnitas

#11
Quote from: NIN on February 25, 2008, 06:24:38 PM
My group CC, ever looking for the perfect joke, looks around conspiratorially and says "Uh, yeah.. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that to yourself, though."

OMG...That IS just about the most perfect ES joke there could be!    :D
Mark A. Piersall, Lt Col, CAP
Frederick Composite Squadron
MER-MD-003

BigMojo

Ben Dickmann, Capt, CAP
Emergency Services Officer
Group 6, Florida Wing

RiverAux

Quote from: BigMojo on February 25, 2008, 05:39:25 PM
UPDATE
Well, this time, I crack the EPIRB open and cut the battery leads and remove the battery, as we gave them a chance to do so last time. Warned him that if someone reconnects a new battery to it, and we get called out again, we're turning it over to the FCC, and it will get monumentally more expensive, and they are much less forgiving....

Boy, talk about exceeding CAP's authority.  Its not our place to be altering someone's equipment like this.  What if some dumbell takes it out thinking it works, sinks and dies and then somebody says well, maybe we would have found him if CAP hadn't cut the battery leads a few months ago....

BigMojo

It was done with the permission of the owner. The EPIRB was donated to the Sea Cadets for use in classroom training only. The XO said it had no need or business being powered or able to be powered, and to please deactivate it permanently. I would think it's assumed that we can not alter private property, without the consent of the owner.

When I say "cut" I don't mean literally. We disconnected the leads, and removed the battery (giving the XO the battery).

Ben Dickmann, Capt, CAP
Emergency Services Officer
Group 6, Florida Wing

RiverAux

Okay, thanks for the clarification.  I withdraw my comments. 

mynetdude

this might be going too far... but you should also get that in writing in case they say differently and you have it on paper stating that permission was given by the owner for CAP ES personnel to alter equipment/property but then again... who'd have that handy in the first place.

CKH405

my wing likes to get creative with practice beacons you no drive around with  them and stuff. but the most creative one was placed in the hole of a porta potty yep in the proverbial can doubtlessly to say the ES officer that placed it there had to come extract it.
C/SMSgt Baker
Safety/PT Officer
Cape Fear Squadron
MER-NC-023

Johnny Yuma

Most unusual ELT nondistress find - Mouth of a Rottweiller.

Wasn't one of my missions, heard about it afterward. GT tracked the signal to a farm, asked the farmer if he had a plane,etc. No, he didn't. While the team's taling to the farmer his Rott walks up with one of the old plastic  breadbox looking ELT's in his mouth, using it as a chewtoy.

Farmer hd no idea where it came from, but the dog had been playing with it for hours.

Best place I've ever seen a trainer ELT : The trunk of a 3rd shift police car on a Saturday night. GT chased it all over town.
"And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it smash our enemies to tiny bits. And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and lima bean-"

" Skip a bit, brother."

"And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. "Three" shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be three. "Four" shalt thou not count, and neither count thou two, execpting that thou then goest on to three. Five is RIGHT OUT. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade to-wards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuffit. Amen."

Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven:

Eclipse

How about 8 in one aircraft, 6 active.

Anyone take a guess where they were?

Hint, they were all properly in use and deployed, not shipping or storage.

"That Others May Zoom"

PWK-GT

Quote from: Eclipse on July 12, 2008, 04:43:44 AM
How about 8 in one aircraft, 6 active.

Anyone take a guess where they were?

Hint, they were all properly in use and deployed, not shipping or storage.

(Raises hand) "OOH OOH, I know.."   ;D
"Is it Friday yet"


jayleswo

In a P-3 Orion inside aircrew survival gear?
John Aylesworth, Lt Col CAP

SAR/DR MP, Mission Check Pilot Examiner, Master Observer
Earhart #1139 FEB 1982

Eclipse

Quote from: jayleswo on July 12, 2008, 03:20:36 PM
In a P-3 Orion inside aircrew survival gear?

Nope, but a good answer.

"That Others May Zoom"

CadetProgramGuy

coast guard c-130 with those elt sonar bouy's they use.....

Eclipse

Quote from: CadetProgramGuy on July 13, 2008, 04:27:41 AM
coast guard c-130 with those elt sonar bouy's they use.....

Another good try, but no.  Anyone else want to spin?

"That Others May Zoom"

SarDragon

Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

Eclipse

The float slides from a Korean Airlines 747.

It landed at O'Hare with smoke in the cabin, so they deployed the slides and everybody bugged out.  The slides are designed to detach from the airplane and act as life rafts, so each one has an ELT in it.

When the guys finally got into the airport and found them, the slides were all balled up on cargo carts.   The had to unroll them and dig  for the ELT's, eventually finding all eight with six of them still activated.

I opted out of this one, but a bunch of my people went, PWK-GT can fill in / correct anything I missed.

"That Others May Zoom"

PWK-GT

Quote from: Eclipse on July 13, 2008, 03:11:23 PM
The float slides from a Korean Airlines 747.

It landed at O'Hare with smoke in the cabin, so they deployed the slides and everybody bugged out.  The slides are designed to detach from the airplane and act as life rafts, so each one has an ELT in it.

When the guys finally got into the airport and found them, the slides were all balled up on cargo carts.   The had to unroll them and dig  for the ELT's, eventually finding all eight with six of them still activated.

I opted out of this one, but a bunch of my people went, PWK-GT can fill in / correct anything I missed.

These were found on a United 777, just arrived from Singapore non-stop. The emergency egress and 'smoke' situation had been all over the news a few hours earlier...and amounted to a snafu in the cabin a/c system.

Upon our arrival, and initial bearing, it became obvious that the source was in the vicinity of the maint. hangar for UAL. After eliminating all the aircraft in the hangar, and still getting a weak hit, we asked the shift manager in Maintenance about the earlier emergency egress situation. As he was explaining that the aircraft in question was moved out to the ramp, one of our team found a weak pinging (on his hand-held) coming from the lugage cart in the hangar. The SRB's (survival rescue beacons) are standard on all trans-oceanic UAL flights now, and the 777 is equipped with 8 of them..one per egress slide. After their deployment, they appeared to have been activated by rough folding and stowing by the ground crews. As mentioned, we found 6 of the 8 to be active...and of course, the carts had all been moved to different areas :P

Notable on these is: a) how easily they can be activated by rough stowage, and b) how weak their signals are. We were within 50 feet of them and they were barely audible with either the L'Per or hand-held.

I wonder how many other airlines have these standard on trans-oceanic flights.....

....And, yes, the team got 6 Finds on this one. ;D
"Is it Friday yet"


Eclipse

Eh, KAL 747, Sinagpore 777, 110, 120, whatever you need.   ;D

"That Others May Zoom"

PWK-GT

...and Eclipse was there in spirit :-) LOL
"Is it Friday yet"


jimmydeanno

Most "interesting" find I've ever had was about 8 years ago now.  We had tracked a signal down to a dump/recycling facility in the local area.  Someone had decided that their EPIRB wasn't needed any more so they brought it down and threw it in the battery pile for "proper" disposition.

It appeared as though someone had just scooped up a load of batteries with a bucket loader of some sort and stirred the pile - setting off the EPIRB.  It took us 4 hours of digging through car batteries, AAs, etc until we found it.

What a pain.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. - Winston Churchill

rightstuffpilot

Yup, we had one in a dump too.  Grand Forks AFB and GFK Airport are about 7 miles apart.  Satellite hits made our best guess out at GFK AFB.  We went half way between the two, took a reading, clearly pointed back to the airport.  Started our search at Fedex since that was on the end closest to the signal we got.  We then headed over to UND Aerospace (120 GA planes flown by student pilots--good odds).  The signal was pointing straight out the end hangar.  We couldn't figure it out because we knew there was no plane down.  After heading to the dump right across from the airport, it was found pretty quickly.
HEIDI C. KIM, Maj , CAP
CFI/CFII/MEI
Spaatz # 1700

Cedar Rapids Composite Squadron- Commander

Capt Rivera

Quote from: rightstuffpilot on November 18, 2008, 03:01:12 AM
Yup, we had one in a dump too.  Grand Forks AFB and GFK Airport are about 7 miles apart.  Satellite hits made our best guess out at GFK AFB.  We went half way between the two, took a reading, clearly pointed back to the airport.  Started our search at Fedex since that was on the end closest to the signal we got.  We then headed over to UND Aerospace (120 GA planes flown by student pilots--good odds).  The signal was pointing straight out the end hangar.  We couldn't figure it out because we knew there was no plane down.  After heading to the dump right across from the airport, it was found pretty quickly.

Pretty Quickly? I wouldn't say that...

We 1st verified there was no downed aircraft in the dump... we didn't just assume that the signal was a tossed ELT.... It was night time (Something Dark AM) so once we were satisfied that there were no Airmen in distress, we packed it up for the night...

Maj Boese, 1st Lt  Sauerwein, and I returned the next morning at 6 or 7am to locate it...  It took at least two hours if memory servers me right.... and it was buried 2 feet or more deep, at the top of a mountain size plateau of garbage....

Personally I wouldn't call 2 hours in the dump quick (it stinks!)... but relatively speaking, considering the size and difficulty of the search area, we are proud of the time frame in which we found it.

Tracking until we got "over the ELT" (over the general area - 5ft radius) took the least amount of time... digging and locating the physical beacon took the majority of the time)
//Signed//

Joshua Rivera, Capt, CAP
Squadron Commander
Grand Forks Composite Squadron
North Dakota Wing, Civil Air Patrol
http://www.grandforkscap.org

ol'fido

One big metal hangar + 32 cessnas= Late Night Headache.
Lt. Col. Randy L. Mitchell
Historian, Group 1, IL-006

DavidB

The strangest place we found an ELT was on board a coast guard helicopter in its hanger at the belle chase naval air station.

Don't know if I should even talk about the one on Air Force One.
David P. Berteau, Lt. Col. CAP
Ascension Parish Composite Squadron LGT

Capt Rivera

Quote from: DavidB on January 16, 2010, 06:41:47 PM

Don't know if I should even talk about the one on Air Force One.

Go for it.
//Signed//

Joshua Rivera, Capt, CAP
Squadron Commander
Grand Forks Composite Squadron
North Dakota Wing, Civil Air Patrol
http://www.grandforkscap.org

Gunner C

Quote from: DavidB on January 16, 2010, 06:41:47 PM
Don't know if I should even talk about the one on Air Force One.
I'd like to hear that one!

PhoenixRisen

This mission was back in 2008, and I had no part in it, just thought I'd share. I dug this out of a bunch of old e-mails I've got.  I thought it was pretty cool, considering who owns the aircraft.

QuoteSearch mission 08M1049 was opened and closed 15 June 2008 for a missing (British) Royal Air Force C-130 on a training flight that had departed El Centro to the Saline MOA in Death Valley.   The aircraft was located in a remote area of Inyo Kern Airport and was missed during a ramp check.  Our crew was unable to confirm that it was the missing C-130 since the aircraft was not using their tail number and two additional C-130s are based out of the airport.  Further investigation by the aircrew located the 130's crew in a motel near the airport and were able to confirm they were the object of the search.