Folks-
Take a read. ND Wing extends a big thank you to AZ Wing's Capt Ogden for his assistance in this search. It did not turn out the way anyone wanted, but his expertise helped bring quick closure to this tragedy for the family and friends of the three victims.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_d7dea134-ca32-11de-9164-001cc4c03286.html
He's an impressive man. Amazing use of technology.
Sad outcome, but one nobody could control. At least its over for he families. I have been told by several family members of victims that its much easier to get the blow fast, the hang on to hope for days, weeks or months only to have it jerked out from under you.
Quote from: smj58501 on November 06, 2009, 02:01:53 AM
Folks-
Take a read.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_d7dea134-ca32-11de-9164-001cc4c03286.html
Excellent story. Per another news report -- It's very unfortunate that when the vehicle started to sink one of the passenger allegedly dialed a friend and called for help. IF one dials 911 in most areas of the country, there is equipment that can get a fix & display (geographic coordinates) at the 911 Call Center. It's used extensively in my state for lost hikers/mountain bikers with very accurate results.
RM
^We do that a lot in CA also. We continually get 911 calls made on cell phones with a Lat/Long that goes with it. Usually it takes us right to a street, meaning someone made the call in their car and kept driving. And then again, we'll get calls that lead right to houses also.
So question for you tech's, is it the specific cell phone or is it done by the towers?
All of the above. The accuracy of locating 911 cell calls varies widely between carriers and even the model cell phone in use. In my 911 center (where I happen to be sitting; it's been a quiet morning), we receive calls from carriers co-located on the same tower with vastly different rates of accuracy.
The most accurate are from newer GPS-equipped phones. Overall, it's a crap shoot.
All cell phones manufactured within the last decade have GPS enabled for 911. Even without GPS you can get within several hundred feet with tower only data.
Even GPS enabled phones have a huge degree of error position-wise. I have a HTC Touch Pro Windows Mobile phone with GPS and can say beyond a reasonable doubt that it's wrong more often than it's correct.
Using the same datum and comparing the position from my cell to the personal computer in my car running a SirfStarIII GPS unit capable of Differential GPS I've seen the phone be off by as much as a half mile at times. Also, if the phone's in my pocket while I'm in the vehicle it takes a while before the phone gets a reliable fix after getting it out.
There are many tools that can be used for finding people carrying cell phones. I'd be curious as to the tools Capt Ogden uses. I've used RadioMobile and "Splat!" for determining repeater / transmitter coverage and dB loss over path before and considering the that pretty much 99.9% of cell sites are in the FCC database it wouldn't be completely hard to map their coverage area. If the AFRCC can retrieve the tower data from the cell companies it stands to reason they can tell which tower sector the cell phone was using.
Most cell sites use 90-120 degree "sector" antennas and each antenna is connected to a unique radio. These radios are identified on the network by MCC/MNC/LAC/Cell ID in GSM systems or BID/SID/NID in CDMA systems. If the phone made multiple call attempts or had dropped calls and the calls came from two different sectors of the same tower you'd have a narrower area of probability because the phone would have to be in an area that would receive signal from both of those directional sector antennas.
Using cell geolocation can give a fairly accurate location depending on conditions. The Google Maps mobile phone application uses cell geolocation when no GPS is available. It performed pretty well considering it used nothing but cell towers within range and signal strength (basically).
Anyway, enough techno-babble. Congratz to Capt. Ogden on the find and getting the recognition for it. I have to admit that as someone that's done cell coverage mapping and worked with teams to correct dead zones I can honestly say he's opened my eyes. I hadn't considered using it to assist in CAP's mission before.
Edit: And regarding E911 GPS data. It's only useful if it gets to the responding agencies. Locally, cellular 911 calls are handled by the state police even though they don't do dispatching of Fire/EMS/Non-State LE Units. Very often a call is received by the state police, they take the nature of call, pertinent info, collect the location given by the caller and poll over the radio or make a phone call to the county dispatch facility for them to dispatch the appropriate unit. Even with EMS calls, more often than not, the caller never speaks with an emergency medical dispatcher and the caller is typically off the phone before emergency units are even toned out.
Sometimes the 911 map will actually show the location of the cell tower, and not the cell phone itself. Given the choice between a landline and a cell phone, landline is the best option if one is available in an emergency.
Quote from: EMT-83 on November 08, 2009, 05:04:21 PM
Sometimes the 911 map will actually show the location of the cell tower, and not the cell phone itself. Given the choice between a landline and a cell phone, landline is the best option if one is available in an emergency.
Depends on your E-911 system.
Quote from: SarMaster on November 09, 2009, 01:00:10 AM
Depends on your E-911 system.
It also depends on if the wireless provider is phase 1 or phase 2, and if phase 2, how well they support it (see: Nextel).
I've discovered after doing some further research that in 2008 the AFRCC/CAP-USAF showed an interest developing a training program for sar-related cell phone forensics / cell triangulation. Now that's a big step forward that I would't mind getting involved in. If anyone has any information on a training program that's in the works (either under USAF,CAP or CAP-USAF) on such a subject drop me a message. I'd love some details if they're available!
I'm glad to hear they're considering it. They need to get the guy from CO to spread some of his aircraft tracking skills around.
So how can one in touch with Capt Ogden about learning some of these methods? I went to Pitt but I'll forgive him being a Penn State Alum >:D
This is a timely discussion. About two weeks ago, the NTSB held a public hearing on its findings regarding the crash of Trooper 2, a Maryland State Police helicopter that crashed during a night medevac mission in September, 2008. The three crew members and one patient were killed and a second patient survived. These are from the NTSB's conclusions:
22. Maryland State Police troopers and System Communications Center personnel were insufficiently equipped and trained to conduct a search involving global positioning system coordinates, and this hindered their ability to locate the site of the wreckage.
23. Neither Prince George's County nor Maryland State Police dispatchers fully understood the importance of obtaining distance and bearing information, as well as the cell tower location, before releasing a location obtained from cell phone 'pinging;' this lack of understanding led dispatchers to provide the cell phone tower's simple street address without context to all units involved in the search. This distracted and confused units already searching a more likely location.
24. The Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control's inability to produce timely location data also hampered search and rescue efforts.
25. Knowledge of the disjointed search and rescue efforts and the techniques eventually employed to locate the accident site could provide valuable lessons to agencies, such as Helicopter Emergency Medical Services dispatch centers, 911 dispatch centers, and fire, police, and sheriff's departments, involved in search and rescue effort.
And from the NTSB's recommendations (the numbers in parentheses will be the NTSB tracking numbers):
To the Maryland State Police and Prince George's County:
Provide additional training to your dispatchers on the use of cell phone 'pinging' and include instruction about how to integrate the data obtained from cell phone pinging into an overall search and rescue plan. (A-09-XX)
To the National Association of Air Medical Communications Specialists, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International, the National Emergency Number Association, the International Association of Police Chiefs, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the International Association of Fire Chiefs:
Inform your members through your websites, newsletters, and conferences of the lessons learned from the emergency response to this accident, particularly emphasizing that search and rescue personnel need to understand how to interpret and use both global positioning system coordinates and the results of cell phone 'pinging'. (A-09-XX)
Here is the link to the NTSB report http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2009/AAR0907.htm
As for training CAP members to work with Justin Ogden (cell phones) and Guy Loughridge (radar), that's already in work.
Mike
Quote from: sardak on November 11, 2009, 06:28:11 AM
As for training CAP members to work with Justin Ogden (cell phones) and Guy Loughridge (radar), that's already in work.
I see the benefit in training cap members to work with Guy Loughridge because training members to an equal proficiency would be costly, time consuming and almost useless anyway because we don't typically have that kind of low level access to the radar data.
To train members to "work with" Justin Ogden isn't sufficient though. We should be developing a training program and the necessary tools to deploy the capability on a national basis. To expect one person in the nation to field every call from CAP for this expertise is absurd. Such training is what the CAP-USAF / AFRCC hinted at in January of this year.