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An interesting place for an ELT...

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

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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.