The sobering thing about this incident is that our technologically advanced systems don't always work. There are apparently no further developments in this story as of today.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Grand Canyon National Park (AZ)
Search In Progress For Missing Aircraft And Pilot

On Sunday, March 13th, Grand Canyon Airport received a report from a general aviation pilot of an activated emergency locator transmitter (also known as an ELT). The airport immediately notified the NPS because the ELT had been detected approximately 30 miles northwest of Grand Canyon Village in the vicinity of Fossil Corridor within Grand Canyon National Park. The park's helicopter flew the area in the vicinity of the reported ELT activation, but did not find any signs of a downed plane nor did they detect the beacon. Because no corresponding report of a missing plane could be found, the search was called off at that point. On Monday, the Coconino County Sheriff's Office contacted the park about a missing person - 47-year-old Joseph Radford of Glendale, Arizona. In the course of their investigation, the sheriff's office had determined that Radford owned a red, RV-6 homebuilt, experimental aircraft, which was also missing. They also determined that Radford's plane was seen at Grand Canyon Airport shortly after 8:30 a.m. the previous Friday. Based on radar tracking information from Friday, the crew of the park helicopter concentrated their search efforts in the Scorpion Ridge area, located in the vicinity of the Dragon Corridor, on Monday. On Tuesday, the park's helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft both flew search patterns in the Fossil Corridor and Scorpion Ridge areas, but with no success. Meanwhile, the sheriff's office continued its investigations and began contacting backpackers known to have been to these areas to see if anyone had seen or heard the plane on Friday. Investigations and aerial searches continued yesterday. The focus was on Bedrock and Galloway Canyons in the Fossil Corridor area. Radford is described as a 47-year-old white male, with blue eyes, graying hair and a receding hairline. He is 5'11" tall and weighs approximately 190 pounds. His plane is described as an RV6 Kit Built cherry red airplane with tail number N650RV. Anyone who may have seen Radford or his plane on Friday morning is asked to contact the park at 928-638-7805. The latest estimate of the total search area is 600 square miles with the National Park Service leading joint search operations with the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. [Submitted by Shannan Marcak, Public Affairs Officer]

And, this is why 406 MHz ELTs are a far better solution.

What would you think is the glitch? That portion of the Canyon is pretty open - there should not be a big problem is spotting wreckage.

That's a lot of ground to cover. There are plenty of steep, twisting ravines. If the wreckage were concentrated at the bottom of such a ravine, you'd have to be at exactly the right angle to see the wreckage.

Link to map of area. "A" is Galloway Canyon. "B" is Bedrock Canyon.

HJ

Glitch? Well, without a good location from a 406 MHz ELT, or DFing on 121.5, you are only guessing as to the search area, based on the radar track, which is huge at best. Finding a crashed airplane from the air isn't the easiest when you know where to look. And, that's not exactly easy terrain to search.

Exactly right. I've hiked in various parts of GCNP. Those side canyons are riddled with steep, almost pit-like ravines that twist and turn. With a small homemade plane, I don't doubt at all that the wreckage could be crumpled in one of them and be quite hard to spot.

A matter of opinion, I guess. I, too, have hiked in various parts of the Canyon, though not as far west as Fossil Corridor and I have experienced a few helicopter flights therein. Compared to various other more heavily vegetated terrain types, aerial searching there seems relatively easy. You do have a very good point about the small size of the plane - it is not exactly a jet liner.

For those who have never been involved in an aerial search, I would also point out that the end result of a plane crash may not resemble the aircraft you are visualizing in the least. That's a mistake many novices searchers make and one reason that many old crashes are left in place for training. In many cases, you will not find a "plane," per se. You find a crash scene. Very different and far harder to locate.

You do need a revised search image. In the sunny skies of Arizona, you often can see lots glittery bits, spread a over the landscape that behave as impromptu and random signal mirrors - in open terrain. I vividly remember one WWII bomber which flew into dense trees on the Mogollon Rim. It was never seen from the air and was not found until many years later by a ground party - the fuselage, minus wings, was actually fairly intact.

I am rather naive about the electronic aspects of aerial search. I take it that the older type of beacon does not act as a homing beacon that leads you to the scene. Is power limited such that a signal is only sent for a limited time?

Since 406 is now the standard, how does one get away with using obsolete equipment?

121.5 no longer is processed by the satellites and therefore no longer can provide a Doppler position. As such, it also isn't a very good alerting device either. It is only useful, to a very limited extent, if heard by an aircraft in the vicinity.

It does serve as a homing beacon, with limited range, but only for as long as it transmits. Lots of things can cause it to transmit for less than the minimum 24 hours, as was clearly the case in this instance.

406 provides satellite alerting, more precise Doppler location, even better GPS location if so equipped, almost instant alerting within the U.S. and also has a 121.5 homer. Both CAP and USCG now have equipped their aircraft to home on 406, which has a homing range of upwards of 100 miles.

The same things that can "kill" a 121.5 ELT will kill a 406 ELT, except there's a far better chance that the 406 will get an accurate location very early in the process, which shoudl improve the odds somewhat. How useful an ELT is in a crash is very debatable and depending upon what statistics you use and how you work them, from 30% - 70% of the time they don't work effectively.

That's why I always say the ELT is back-up to a PLB and also one reason that so far 406 has not been mandated for GA aircraft. The FCC tried last year, in an absurd example of the govt. screwing up as only it can do, but got jumped on and backed off. I suspect at some point we will see a mandate with a very long phase in. Other countries have mandated them, or tried, with variable results.