Saturday July 5, 2008 the SPOT - FINDMESPOT rescue device failed under very visible conditions.

Kent Couch of COUCHBALLOONS.COM flew a lawn chair with helium balloons from Bend, Oregon to Cambridge, Idaho.

One of the sponsors, SPOT, provided tracking information for publicity and rescue. According to Mark Knowles, event coordinator, an hour into the flight, the FINDMESPOT servers failed support.

Kent landed safely no help to SPOT. Ground crews in Idaho were promised a mashup between FINDMESPOT and GOOGLEMAPS. The anticipated recording of the flight over the Snake River and into Idaho was lost.

Excuses are many. One offered is that the servers were hit too hard by the National media exposure. Maybe SPOT is not as serious about there products capability as they advertise. Had Kent needed rescue, that excuse would have been of limited comfort.

Had James Kim been depending on the SPOT product, his death would not have boded well for SPOT