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Australian Safety Beacon
System
Improves Outback Security
Here’s a bit of news that may interest anyone who has to
do 4WD-ing in the great Australian outback. It was passed on to me back in 1996
soon after we opened our site:
The Royal Flying Doctor Service’s mantle of safety over
outback Australia is about to go high-tech with the addition of emergency
locator beacon homing devices on all its aircraft.
The devices, which were
obtained through a $48,000 grant from Australia’s largest insurance company AMP,
will allow the aircraft to home in on radio signals from the beacons and
accurately position aircraft, ships or even vehicles in distress.
RFDS general manager Roger Wellington said that equipping their
aircraft with ELB homing devices would greatly enhance search and rescue
capability - to such an extent that the RFDS will now become a major provider of
search and rescue services in the outback.
"We have eight aircraft on call 24-hours-a-day at bases in
Cairns, Rockhampton, Brisbane, Charleville and Mt Isa," Mr Wellington said.
"Should an RFDS aircraft locate a distress signal, they have the potential to
land on the nearest serviceable landing area and could feasibly be the first
medical personnel at the scene of an accident."
Airservices Australia Civil Search and Rescue Unit co-ordinator
Peter Horton said that the beacon devices have a range of about 240km but were
complemented by a satellite tracking system. Aircraft could be sent to a search
area after a distress signal was received by satellites (which passed over
Australia every two hours) and provide a search location.
All vessels operating more than two nautical miles offshore in
Australia are already required to fit the ELBs, as are most aircraft. The units
are also becoming popular with people driving four wheel drives to remote
areas.
More Info On Safety Beacons
Shortly after I originally ran the news clipping (above) on this
site I received an excellent email from Darryl Hinnon at the MRCC in Canberra
(the people who co-ordinated the dramatic lone yachtsman sea rescue in 1997)
which provided some useful extra information about these beacons. Here’s what he
had to say:
I’m just at the end of a long night shift in the Maritime
Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) in Canberra and right beside my desk are the
computers which process the satellite detections of these beacons (luckily, the
only one we’ve detected tonight was at Darwin airport!).
Many 4WD-ers are now taking beacons with them on trips and to
keep the system free of false alerts we advise that the beacon be checked
regularly in case it’s been jolted or in case young Johnny has found the "on"
switch. This is important because it’s not inconceivable that the police - who
are responsible for land search-and-rescue operations - could attempt to recover
the costs involved in tracking down the source of a false alert.
Some companies who have workers such as geologists
working in remote areas are also equipping them with beacons. In many cases
these are the newer (and more expensive) Personal Locater Beacon. Their big
advantage is that they have an identity encoded in the signal so that we can
identify who it belongs to and immediately ring the company contact with the
details.
- Darryl Hinnon
Thankyou again for sending this in, Darryl. Food for
thought if you’re going to use one, isn’t it?
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