Great article and very informative. I’m a retired A&P and was unaware that SAR insurance existed. Registering your ELT could be a lifesaver as the downed pilot(s) and passengers could be in a life or death situation and the quicker the rescue then the chances of a better outcome increase considerably.
Good article on SAR coordination. It’s a complicated system with many players but letting everyone know exactly where you are can have a dramatic effect on search and rescue time. I have an ARTEX ME406 in my Maule and carry an ACR ResQLink 400 PLB and Garmin InReach Explorer SE in my survival vest. The ELT and PLB are registered with NOAA the InReach is registered with FAA Flight Service. I keep the information up to date. The InReach transmits my position to my family and the FAA (when on an IFR flight plan) every 10 minutes. I also have an ADS-B In/Out transponder in my airplane that transmits my position to the FAA every minute if I’m within line of sight of an ADS-B ground station or to another nearby aircraft equipped with ADS-B In. I subscribe to Garmin’s SAR insurance with my InReach. When I fly, I text my route and intended points of landing to my wife and daughters before I take off. All of this might sound like communications overkill, but I’ve been a CAP mission pilot and scout plane pilot for a State Forest Service for many years and there’s no such thing as overkill when it comes to SAR.
Great article, thanks. I had never heard of SAR insurance, SAR cards, or the connection with some states’ hunting or fishing licenses. Good to know!
Well post brief article, or as we call it LLIS (Lessons Learned Information Shared.) ICS has proven its worth over the years. Coordination is the key to any successful SAR mission even if it is a recovery operation.
Sadly many agencies still refuse to use ICS even though it was mandated training by FEMA in the mid-2000 (after NYC and the Shuttle crash.) Practicing daily can make the first responder community highly trained when the multi-agency requirement of ICS is needed. As a former SAR Instructor and Level 400 ICS instructor, I can tell you this article was spot on. Thanks, Mike Hart for a great article and break down on how rapid responses are to be handled.
“ Latitude and longitude can be written down as degrees, minutes and seconds, or as degrees and decimal increments, or in some combination.”
I have personal experience attempting to coordinate across multiple agencies, across multiple assets (air, land, water) using different location formats. It’s a problem and causes much confusion.
Double that with different map formats. Air assets using aeronautical charts, land asserts using topo (or even Google maps), water assets using navigational charts.
Personally, I like decimal degrees. Easier to speak over the radio and if the receiver doesn’t catch all the digits on the first call, it’ll at least get them pointed in the right direction.
As for maps, correlate major landmarks/navigational aids to their closest aeronautical fixes, wa
Way points or something defined on a VFR chart.