Canadian Aviator Magazine is reporting that Canadian military search and rescue aircraft are being equipped with devices that can track cell phones carried by pilots and passengers. The equipment used by the Canadian Airborne Sensor for Search and Rescue sytem detects the cell tower interrogation signals emitted by cell phones. The system has been installed in CC-130H aircraft that are dedicated to search and rescue response. According to a summary released by Canada's Department of National Defence, the system "essentially mimics a cellphone tower to capture location and other information from an operating cellphone." Conversations cannot be monitored. Phones have to be on, with a live battery and not on airplane mode and once detected it's easy to home in and find the phone.
I’m an old SAR/CSAR dog, Dustoff in RVN, USCG and Desert Storm. The capability has been on cop shows for years LOL. It sounds, quite literally, as a life saver. IF we aren’t already doing it we (US) need to take a page from our Northern Friends.
The Civil Air Patrol ( CAP) has had a very vigorous Cell Phone forensics unit for years, and has been responsible for saving lives in the US. The Air Force Search and Rescue Coordination Center calls on CAP regularly for this service.
Exactly. In fact there’s a story in FLYING in Oct about Smartphones expediting to time to find. CAP has been locating downed aircraft, lost hikers, stranded boaters, etc. since 2006.
Canadian 406 /121.5 MHz ELT’s are good and and have a decent battery.
ADS-B out transmitters are powered on in flight for tracking.
Pilot/passenger phones are supposed to be “off” or “airplane mode” so I’m not sure how reliable it is tracking of phones if a plane goes down hard.
On the other hand…
This system is IDEAL for look down scanning of vast areas of airspace for low flying aircraft. I would assume that Canada is more interested in those sort of unscheduled below radar flights with this type of gear.
In the United States, the Civil Air Patrol has a National Cell Phone Forensics Team which assists Search and Rescue teams across the continental United States and Alaska in locating aircraft and missing/lost/injured persons through analysis of historical cellular data records.
The Cell Team went from less than 5 missions a year the first couple of years to averaging a mission per day in 2017 and 2018. Once a last resort effort, most agencies that request support for searches from the AFRCC solely ask for the Cell Team’s support and request no other federal resources. Once smart phones became ubiquitous, searching for phones became the de-facto first step in nearly every search. A vast majority of the finds and saves that the AFRCC (Air Force Rescue Coordination Center) credits to the Civil Air Patrol each year are due to the Cell Team’s participation. Branching out from just missing aircraft searches, the Cell Team now supports a multitude of search types for agencies throughout the continental United States and Alaska. The Cell Team works with the two primary providers of 911 service in the continental United States and is often able to obtain accurate GPS-based position information that the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) missed.
I agree, but not likely to happen. Also, with most GA aircraft, pretty well everyone on board with a cell phone will leave it on in flight, so no problems there. Phone conversations usually don’t work, but I frequently send and receive text messages from my wife and friends while flying cross-country. With the iPhone’s new satellite emergency capability, notifying help following an accident can happen quickly.