A search in the Blue Mountains last week showed yet again how hard it can be to find people in the Australian bush, even if you have helicopters and the search area is quite small.
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SMH - Search for canyoners
Six people were due to return on Tuesday night from a day trip, so on Wednesday the Police started the search using ground parties and a helicopter. More ground parties joined the search on Thursday and there was limited helicopter searching due to low cloud.
Luckily they were sighted by the helicopter at 4.20 pm on Thursday and winched out in dangerous weather conditions, but sadly one person had been killed in a rockfall three hours before they were found.
They had no Emergency
Beacon or other way of contacting anyone while they were lost - they were only a few kilometres from civilisation - there’s no mobile coverage. If they did have a
Beacon, they could have set it off when they saw helicopters searching for them - the helicopter would have flown directly to them, since all Rescue helicopters have homing receivers and ANY aircraft radio can detect and localise the 121.5
beacon signal which the new 406 Beacons also emit for homing.
Many people are reluctant to spend $600 on an item you are very unlikely to ever need. Some people even consider taking a
beacon along is planning to fail !
In the Blue Mtns, 406 Beacons are available for free loan from
Katoomba Police Station or Blackheath NPWS Office, however for these 6 people coming from
Sydney,
Katoomba or Blackheath would have meant even more distance to travel on the way to Mt
Wilson. Maybe they weren’t aware of this free loan facility.
There are still plenty of the old 121.5-only Beacons around, and this type is totally effective to make searching aircraft quickly aware of where you are, even with zero visibility. Certain boating and aviation people who are required by law to carry a new 406
beacon, now have lots of the older beacons lying idle.
However the government has decided that “no
Beacon” is better than a 121.5
Beacon - as of February it will be illegal to use 121.5 for any activity.
http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/ - “After 1 Feb 2010, it will be illegal to use a 121.5 MHz Distress
beacon for ANY purpose.”
http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/distress-beacons.html - “When a distress
beacon is activated, it transmits a signal that is detectable by satellites and overflying aircraft.”
http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/usage.html - “With the satellite system no longer receiving alerts from 121.5 MHz from 1 February 2009, over-flying aircraft are the only means of detecting activated analogue beacons.”
Those who can’t afford or can’t justify the $600 for a new 406
Beacon, will now not have the legal option of taking a 121.5
beacon.
So if you’re lost or immobilised out in the bush with an old 121.5-only
beacon you will face a tough decision - will I -
a) comply with the law and not set off the
beacon, igoring how much money it’s costing to have the helicopters and ground parties searching, hoping no-one gets injured during the protracted searching, hoping they will eventually see me. They searched for over a week for Jamie Neale, there were several serious injuries to searchers, yet they did not sight him.
b) set off the
Beacon and have the helicopter fly straight to your position.
There were valid reasons for the government banning the old style beacons -
1) Old beacons were going off accidentally and resources had to be diverted to search for them.
2) False activations jam the frequency and can block reception of a genuine emergency.
3) The old beacons had no accompanying digital 406 signal, which would allowed the vessel/aircraft/owner to be identified and contacted as to the whereabouts of the
beacon.
However I’m convinced a 121.5-only
beacon is much better than no
Beacon at all, so if my 406
Beacon is unavailable, the choice between a) and b) will be easy.
I’ll be contacting my Federal MP to point out the disdvantages of the banning of 121.5-only beacons.