Mission Report
Mission #07M1136
June 29, 2007
Humboldt ELT
Submitted by Capt Kim Kirschman

I received a call at about 0500 requesting that I assemble a crew for an ELT search.  Lt Tony Short responded to my call.  We departed IKV at 0558 and headed for the assigned search area south and southeast of Algona.  While passing Humboldt we began to receive an ELT signal on one of the aircraft's comm radios.  The DF radio was not yet receiving the signal, so after doing a couple of wing-null circles we headed in the direction indicated.  Within a couple of minutes the DF radio picked up the signal and led us to the Humboldt airport.  A circle around the airport verified the signal was coming from within the airport boundaries, so we landed to investigate.  Though the df indications were contractictory and erratic while taxiing (probably due to the presence of several metal hangars), we spotted a Cessna 152 with a damaged nose gear and prop, stopped, and made a few phone calls.  We learned the Cessna had been damaged the night before during a botched landing, so we were fairly confident its ELT was the offender.  Since the plane was locked, we waited approximately an hour an employee of the Waterloo FBO that owned the plane to arrive to unlock the aircraft and disable the ELT.  That was finally done, so we departed for IKV, landing at 0900.

A CAP ground team was dispatched from Des Moines, but it was ordered to RTB shortly after we found the Cessna.

The plotted hits for this mission were a considerable distance from the actual location of the ELT.  We were fortunate to hear the signal while enroute to the assigned search area; had the ELT been located beyond the assigned area we may have encountered a very lengthy search as the area was slowly expanded.