Two people were on a backpacking trip in the national forest. One of them fell and was too badly injured to continue.
They got a locator beacon from their supplies. The antenna was extended and the button was pressed. The radio signal hit the detectors on the satellites. The instruments picked up the signal and sent an alert to Earth.
The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center received an alert that someone was in trouble near Covington Mill, California, along with details about who owned the device and how to contact them. A helicopter was soon going to the trekkers. The hikers were flown to the hospital after being hoisted.
That was an easy end to a wilderness distress call. Thousands of others are in the incident history database of the sarsat program. Locating the hikers didn't need to be done with sign-in sheets or notes left in cars. The slogan is " to take the search out of search and rescue" A little-known US program aims to save hikers and climbers, overturn ATV and snowmobile drivers, and passengers in crashed planes. It is part of an international collaboration. The system relies on simple devices that send a distress signal and a system of satellites that listen for calls. Jesse Reich believes that if you really need your life saved, this is the one that is there for you.
Most of the rescue devices in the database are owned by people who don't want to use them. More than 50,000 people around the world have been saved because they activated their 406 beacon.
There was an incident in 1972 in which two members of Congress flew in a twin-engine plane across Alaska. The plane went missing in a region with bad weather. There was a 325,000-square-mile search that took 39 days to complete. Politicians and their plane are still missing after the search was called off.
In the event of a crash, Congress made it a requirement for aircraft to have emergency beacon. The plan was limited by the fact that another plane had to be nearby to pick up the call. NASA realized that it would be possible for satellites to survey the entire planet and even the ocean. The US, Canada, France, and the former Soviet Union signed papers in Leningrad after a group of space agency scientists researched what could be done. The first satellite was launched in June 1982.
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