The bane of search and rescue personnel is the unintentional ELT activation but officials in Portland had to admit they were intrigued with the result of a three-day search for a bogus signal earlier this year. They found their quarry in the rafters of a brew pub after the ELT in a 50-year-old Canadian-registered Cessna 310, hanging there as an ornament, was somehow triggered. The chase began in late February, shortly after the pub opened, when the ELT began announcing its apparent distress to passing aircraft. Some airline passengers were reportedly asked to look out the windows to see if they could see the crash. In the absence of an obvious crash scene, finding the squawking box took some sleuthing and ended with the searchers posing for photos with the offending device. The story was published last week in Willamette Week.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/elt-signal-traced-to-bar-ornament