Hide Article Text (OCR)
By Mary Hayward We are often hearing news of missing light aircraft and ac cidents frequently including fa talities and sometimes featur ing dramatic rescues. In a lot of these cases the pilot and passengers have survived the crash but have perished before they could be found due to ex tremely low temperatures which exist in Canada during the winter. One answer to this problem appeared to be the installation of the Emergency Location Transmitter unit, known as the E.L.T. This is an electronic device which when armed and on sufficient impact such as in the case of a crash landing, will emit a deep distress signal. This signal is picked up on either of two very high frequency ra dio wavelengths by radio op erators, on the ground or by planes in the vicinity. The ex act location of the downed plane is then pinpointed and the search and rescue operation is carried out. Proposals by the Federal Gov ernment had been made to make mandatory the installation of E.L.T.'s in most aircraft by January, 1974. To the layman this would appear to be an ob vious step for the government to take and yet the proposal had not gone through. It was reasonable therefore to suppose that there were arguments against them taking this step, so I went along to the govern ment Air Base in Lac du Bonnet to find out more about the E.L.T.'s. One thing which always im presses itself upon me is the enthusiasm with which these pi lots regard their work, and they together with other staff were most helpful in answering my questions. _ First I learned a little of the history of the air base which started in 1932 when the air force gave one plane for fire fighting use. The plane was a Vickers Vedette flying boat which was underpowered. Jim Uhlman was the pilot and the joke in those days was that the plane took off at 85 M.P.H. flew at 85 M.P.H. and landed at 85 M.P.H. However things have progres sed from those days. By 1974 there were seven planes and now in 1974 that number has grown to twenty-three planes with a complement of thirty pilots. I was then told that all the planes were equipped with E.L.T.’s in the form of the Dart II. These are in the process of being replaced with the ELTIO which is now regarded as more efficient.. I was invited to act ivate a Dart II and was surpris ed to find that this device which could save lives was a rectan gular shaped instrument of only about nine inches long. I gave it a smart tap on the desk which immediately activated it and it set up its unmistakable beep. The problem with E.L.T.'s has been that they were designed and manufactured in the U.S.A. for use in that country and could not stand up to Canadian en vironmental conditions. These problems had to be solved before they became mandatory. Ideally they should be’* able to withstand the crash and be come automatically activated. They should also work under se vere temperatures both cold and heat from fire, and be able to transmit underwater. There have been cases where a plane has carried on E.L.T. but the pilot has not armed it. Autopsies conducted after one such accident determined that after he crashed the pilot gained consciousness after about five hours, at this point injured and half frozen he had obviously drag ged himself to the rear of the plane, pulled the E.S.T. off the wall, switched it to the armed position giving it a bang to act ivate it. An airliner immediately pick ed up the emergency signal and search and rescue units located the wreckage at about midnight, but by that time the pilot had frozen to death. If the E.L.T. had been armed at the time of the crash the pilot would have been found five hours earlier and probably would be alive to day. So in this case the E.L.T. became ineffectual due to the human element. Mr. R. F. Heiliger, Regional Controller, Civil Aviation, told me about two recent accidents in which E.L.T.’s played a vital role. In the first instance a Citabria crashed and the signal from the E.L.T. was first pick ed up by a C.P.A. flight inbound to Winnipeg which facilitated ra pid location of the wreckage. On the other occasion, an air craft fell through the ice on landing. The occupants vacated the aircraft safely and made the hazardous journey to shore over thin ice. The E.L.T. began transmitting after the impact and even though underwater with only a small portion of the antenna exposed, continued to transmit for some seven days. In this instance, the continuous trans mission was somewhat annoying as the condition of the ice pre vented anyone from switching the £.S.T. off. However, Mr. Heiliger says it is reassuring to note the effectiveness of such equipment. From Ottawa came this an nouncement made by the Mini ster of Transport Jean March and. The mandatory date for most aircraft to have emergency lo cator transmitters (ELT’s) in stalled will be July 1st, 1974. ELT’s assist search and re scue planes in locating downed aircraft by beaming in on sig nals activated automatically or manually from such equipment carried in the aircraft. A federal Interdepartmental Task Force has carried out an intensive review of the existing search and rescue system for downed aircraft in Canada and has submitted recommendations to the Minister on the carriage of ELT’s on most aircraft. The study included an examination of ELT’s and their power sup plies, receiving equipment, fin ancial implications, and the se quence of events between the mo ment an aircraft goes down and when it is located and survi vors rescued. An air naviga tion order, based on the re commendations of the task force will be issued in the near fu ture, making ELT’s mandatory by July 1st, 1974. Earlier a draft of the air navigation order had proposed DARTI Distressed Aircraft Radio Transmitter Featuring Voice Transmission ACTIVATES AUTOMATICALLY. Only 6 g's impact activates beacon signal on BOTH 121.5 and 243.0 MHz. Antenna always in fixed operating position. Func tion switch gives complete control and knowledge of operating system, VOICE BACKUP.: Plug in your regular radio mike and talk! Emergency tone and impact switch is automatically by-passed when you press mike button. BATTERY CONVENIENCE. Will work with any standard D size flashlight cells. Operates from -40 ° F to 150 ° F with alka line batteries shified. Other standard size batteries available for extended en vironmental conditions. VIRTUALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE. Designed to withstand the most severe impact! Molded Lexan plastic, body-shockproof and waterproof. Encapsulated » solid state cir cuitry. FIXED OR PORTABLE. A mounting kit is supplied for installation near the pilot's windshield. From this position it is ready for triggering on impact. It also permits convenient access to pilot for manual use. Size is 1-9/4 x 2-3/4 x 6 . Weight 24 ounces. Including alkaline batteries, an effective date of January 1, 1974. This date has been set back to improve ELT’s to suit Canadian environmental condi tions, and to allow government and industry additional time to prepare for the process of ap proving and installing ELT's in most aircraft. The task force recommended, as minimum standards for ef fective ELT's in Canadian en vironmental conditions, 100 hours of operation over a range of temperatures from over 75 degrees down to as few as 40 degrees. Recent technological developments have made avail able new battery types with great ly improved low temperature performance, and the manufac turers have indicated that they will produce improved units that will be available during 1974. The present Canadian search and rescue system is based on rescue co-ordination centres which have been established by the Canadian Armed Forces at Halifax, Trenton, Edmonton, and Victoria. The search success rate is about 90 percent, how ever, on the average about four aircraft a year are never locat ed. Forty percent of present flying time is spent on unsuc cessful searchers. The task force examined as much information as was avail able on all incidents of downed aircraft in Canada over the last five years. It concluded that ELT's which deployed on im pact, or which were permanently mounted as far back as possible in the aircraft, would have a good chance of surviving the impact of a crash. With an improved operating life of 100 hours, these units offer the greatest poten tial for improvement of search and rescue effectiveness in Canada at this time. Mr. Marchand said that the implementation of the recom mendations, together with the other more detailed recommen dations included in the task force’s report will result in fur ther improvements to the success being achieved by the existing search and rescue system. ‘The probability of being rescued should improve and the search period should be shortened,’ the Minister stated. And so it seems certain that with the mandatory installation of E.L.T.’s in July, millions of dollars at present spent on sear ches will be saved along with many lives. Major Richards has some in teresting information and facts appertaining to search and re scue. In his office at Canadian Forces Headquarters he has more than 500 reports that cover major searches back to 1948. Two factors are common to most of them: nearly all contain the observation that a crash position Indicator type ELT would have been invaluable in locating the downed aircraft, and, in eight out of ten, adverse weather, often coupled with inexperience, was the primary cause of the in cident. Once the problems are identi fied through the hindsight pro vided by the reports, the so lutions are obvious. Better air manship could eliminate many of the incidents caused by wea ther, and widespread use of E.L.T.’s would provide a quick, positive method of locating down ed aircraft. Nothing can be done to change the weather, but a lot can be done to make sure that it doesn’t become the arbiter of one’s fate. This is where airmanship - a blend of knowledge and common sense - comes in. Anyone who flies should make it his business to have a sound knowledge of meteorology and to use the free forecasting and reporting facili ties that are at his disposal. Equally important he should re cognize and accept his personal limitations and those of his air craft when faced with a fore cast or enroute weather problem. This is obviously rudimentary and some might even think superfluous advice. But it is surprising how often search re ports show pilots putting them selves in situations where they literally gamble their lives against a stacked cloud deck. Again and again there are in cidents where a pilot encount ers deteriorating weather and de cides to climb on top or pro ceed on instruments without the benefit of adequate navigation equipment, radio's or instrument flying experience. In one month last year there were two cases of this type resulting in 700 hours of search time. Perhaps the hardest cases to understand are those where re latively inexperienced pilots take off when enroute conditions are so poor that experienced profes sionals, flying better equipped aircraft, electro cancel. In re cent years two incidents stand out. Both ended in tragedy. One involved a night IFR (in strument flight rule) flight of 300 miles over a route blanket ed with a snow storm of bliz zard proportions. The conditions at the point of takeoff were so bad that the pilot, instrument qualified but with little actual experience, became lost while actually taxiing and had to be pulled out of a snowbank. The tower advised him against trying a second time but as the field still had takeoff limits, he ig nored the advice and pressed on. The disintegrated aircraft, to gether with the pilot and his passenger, was found the next summer about 30 miles from the departure point. The other case also involved flight planning, in this case VFR (visual flight rules) through an area where a complex frontal system was forecast to move while the aircraft was en route. There was less than 50% chance that the flight could get through before rain, fog and turbulence made flight dangerous if not im possible. The pilot took the chance and lost. The weather be haved as forecast and was fol lowed by a series of systems so extensive that it took five weeks to complete the search. Even then it was not possible to cover one small segment - the segment where the aircraft was found two months later. The pilot and his passenger had survived, but the only indications of their ultimate fate were a note, and a few personal belong ings scattered down a cliff face. A Rescue Co-ordination Centre is a very busy place when an overdue aircraft is reported. The primary tool of the controllers is the telephone. During the first few hours of an incident as many as three controllers man the tele phones virtually non-stop. They are checking, alerting and ga thering information. An essential part of the in formation - gathering process involves Flight Plan details. When one has not been filed, the controllers are compelled to become telephone sleuths. Calls are made to relatives, friends and associates. It is sur prising how time-consuming it is to get accurate information in this way. What was the pro posed route? How much fuel was on board? How many people were there on the aircraft and what were their names? What colour is the aircraft? Did it carry rations or safety equipment and if so what? What radio equip ment was installed? Was an em ergency locator beacon carried? The questions go on and on. Without a flight plan, valu able time is wasted and often a search has to be started with out the searchers having neces sary details. Filing is a form of free insurance. How effective are air searchers? Or perhaps more to the point, what are one’s chances of being located if he crashes or is forced down? The pilot’s chances are good to excellent if he has filed, gone down on or near track, sur vived and has a signalling device, preferably electronic. Search coverage is based on concentrating the maximum ef fort in areas of highest proba bility: the track, areas 25 to 35 miles wide on both sides of track, and circular areas with approximately 25 miles radius around the departure point, turn ing points and destination. The initial search consists of a series of track crawls done at 1000 feet using a visibility distance of three miles each side of the aircraft. If it is known that an ELT is carried, another aircraft will cover the track at 10,000 feet or higher using a 50 mile sweep width. The track is also searched us ually at night, usually the first or second night at 5000 feet and a five mile visibility dis tance. If the track crawls are un successful, then the probability areas are blocked off in squares and covered in a guidelike pat tern with aircraft flying at 1000 feet, with six mile spacing bet ween tracks. The objective is to locate survivors as quickly as possible, hopefully by some sort of signal. Lack of success at this stage is indicative that there are either no survivors or they are unable to signal. The problem is then assumed to be one of locating the wreck age and the heights and track spacings are reduced with each subsequent sweep. While the concentrated search ing is going on in the proba bility areas, the overall area of possibility that lies outside of these areas is also being cov ered, but less thoroughly. If an ELT is on board the missing aircraft miles or more can be used. Locating survivors is a matter of team work. The search crews must be alert and conscientious Continued on page 7
Newspaper Details
Springfield Leader
Springfield, Manitoba, CA
Tue, Mar 12, 1974
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Mike U.
CA 06 Jul 2026
Other Publications Near Springfield, Manitoba
Interlake Spectator
Springfield Leader
