Questions tagged [search-and-rescue]

The operation after an accident that tries to rescue the survivors.

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17 votes
2 answers
5k views

Why are Search & Rescue aircraft looking for the OceanGate Titan submarine not visible on ADS-B Exchange?

Currently, there is an ongoing Search and Rescue mission being conducted by Canada, the United States, and commercial operators to find and rescue the crew of the OceanGate Titan submersible vessel (...
-4 votes
1 answer
105 views

According to which rule, the maritime patrol aircraft are categorized?

Generally, maritime patrol missions are conducted by several types of fixed wing and rotor wing aircraft according to its endurance, capabilities and other features such as weapons, sensors ...
2 votes
1 answer
189 views

How to request the programming of ICAO 24bit aircraft code into a PLB

I have my ICAO 24 bit Hex code programmed in the aircraft ELT (Cirrus SR22) and of course, it is also coded in my aircraft Transponder. I will purchase a COSPAS/SARSAT PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) ...
6 votes
3 answers
862 views

What would happen if the Emergency Locator Transmitter was activated wrongly?

Supposing, after a "bad" landing, performing a high vertical speeed, the crew, unintentionally, activates the ELT, sending the signs to the sattelites, warning the rescue and team about the "accident",...
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

What happens if I activate VFR flight plan later than filed ETD?

Let's say I filed a VFR flight plan with ETD (1500), en route (2 hours), ETA (1700) If I depart and activate the plan at 1600, now the new ETA will be 1800 which is an hour later the the filed ETA. ...
4 votes
1 answer
335 views

How is the search-and-rescue system for civil aviation over waters agreed and funded?

Several accidents in the recent years have revealed how important --and intuitively expensive-- SAR operations over seas can be. Need for daily government agencies / military flights in the first ...
2 votes
1 answer
217 views

Can you mount a net between 2 helicopters for search and rescue?

During situations where multiple people are in danger, I am wondering whether you can have a huge net mounted between 2 helicopters on a device with 2 arms on each helicopter, and when need to rescue, ...
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

What callsigns do UK Medical Emergency Response Teams use?

I'm making a simulation game and there's a large focus on the humanitarian effort military personnel put in, putting aside the shooting and more on the story. Part of this is a Medical Emergency ...
18 votes
3 answers
3k views

What makes flight recorders harder to find than tagged sharks?

It really bothers me that we can't find planes that weigh tons with black boxes (AFAIK) technology that's almost obsolete, on the other hand shark tags (AFAIK) work great for long time and we can ...
0 votes
2 answers
643 views

Are helicopter searchlights fixed or movable?

Can the helicopter crew move the helicopter searchlights or are they always fixed at a specific location on the helicopter? They are used by rescue helicopters mostly but I am not sure if crew can ...
8 votes
1 answer
444 views

Are there countries where not all plane crashes are investigated (even if deadly)?

background information I was struck by the news of this deadly plane crash on 20 Dec 2018 which claimed 8 lives and apparently is not investigated as the plane and its potential survivors were not ...
7 votes
3 answers
678 views

How to find black boxes underwater absent any pinger signals?

If CVR/FDR cannot be seen visually on the seafloor (because covered by a thick layer of mud/sediments) and no pinger signals are detected, how can they be found? Metal detectors? Any other methods? ...
0 votes
1 answer
414 views

How to refute this geometrical method to find MH370? [closed]

A geometrical method to find MH370 has been published on the Net (see images below). I am sure it is wrong (because if it were that easy, thousands of people would have had this idea back in 2014). ...
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

Who operates the hoist in a Coast Guard helicopter SAR team?

Could you tell me who operates the hoist in the Coast Guard helicopter SAR teams? Is it the A&P technician(Flight mechanic) or the Rescue swimmer(winchman)? I'm interested to procedures from ...
7 votes
3 answers
409 views

What is the optimum viewing angle to search for something on the ground from the air?

Continuing my series on our upcoming search for a downed Douglas B-18 bomber in Alaska* (13 more days to go!), I've started to think about the angle we should use to "look down" at the terrain. This ...
9 votes
1 answer
729 views

Where can I find more information about my grandfather's crashed B-18a bomber on Mt. Redoubt Alaska?

My father and I have chartered a plane for late August to search for the remains of my grandfather's B-18a bomber, which crashed in the summer of 1942 in Mt. Redoubt Alaska. I am specifically ...
9 votes
3 answers
10k views

What can trigger the ELT on GA aircraft?

Does the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) on smaller aircraft activate automatically in case of an accident? If so, what triggers it? Is it a certain amount of G's that triggers it or are there ...
38 votes
5 answers
16k views

How can a computer model yield two possible flight paths of MH370 in South Indian Ocean?

I am reading this article on the NY Times, where they show two possible flight paths of the missing flight MH370 in the South Indian Ocean: I am wondering how they can come up with such specific ...
3 votes
1 answer
371 views

Is a releasable locator beacon (ELT) required for aircraft carrying passengers over a water area?

Is an Emergency locator transmitter - ELT required on any type of aircraft carrying passengers over water? Does it need to be fitted with an hydrostatic release unit so that it doesn't sink with the ...
14 votes
1 answer
874 views

What is it like to volunteer with Civil Air Patrol (CAP) as a pilot?

I saw various people talking about volunteering with CAP. I’m about to sit my test for my PPL, and am wondering whether there are opportunities to volunteer for search and rescue, or more generally, ...
2 votes
1 answer
207 views

Does it exist? Environmentally-friendly/safe fluorescent liquid to make sea crashes easier to find? [closed]

Has this been tried in aviation history? To make airplane sea crashes easier to find, can we use a colored liquid that is lighter than water, environmentally-friendly and safe, with fluorescent ...
13 votes
3 answers
8k views

Could Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have sunk without leaving any floating wreckage?

With all the searching on the surface of the Indian Ocean for evidence of Flt. 370, I'm wondering if there's any conceivable scenario in which the Boeing 777 could have sunk without producing any ...
21 votes
2 answers
2k views

How does a pilot report a person (on the surface) in distress?

After a downhill bike ride gone wrong last night. Around midnight I was climbing up a mountain (to my Jeep) with my bike on my back. While I was climbing I was thinking about the fact my headlight ...
10 votes
3 answers
4k views

How does a CVR / FDR determine when to stop recording?

For example, the CVR records only about 2 hours of data. Overwriting important data must be avoided, and thus the recorders should know if a catastrophe has happened. Then they can stop recording (to ...
3 votes
2 answers
347 views

Would better location tracking for airliners improve safety?

Once in a while an airliner just up and disappears -- typically over ocean -- and lengthy and expensive search efforts have to be launched in order to find it. The most famous cases in recent years ...
15 votes
4 answers
9k views

How close do you have to be to an underwater black box to detect it?

The news keeps talking about the black boxes on aircraft that end up in water, and one thing that keeps coming up is the underwater locator beacon that transmits a signal for 30 days if it gets wet. ...
5 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why is only a single underwater robotic submarine Bluefin-21 being deployed in the search for MH370? [closed]

As my question states, why is only a single Bluefin-21 being deployed underwater to scan the seabed with an area of around 40 square miles? Why aren't multiple Bluefin-21's getting deployed when ...
3 votes
1 answer
170 views

What factors contributed to enable Rickenbacher to be found?

In Rickenbacher's autobiography he tells of his flight across the Atlantic in a B-17 after WWII. They ended up running out of gas as I recall, making a water landing in the middle of the ocean. They ...