Mission Report
Mission #02M2617
November 5, 2002
Council Bluffs ELT
Submitted by Russ Smith, Incident Commander

We received a call from AFRCC yesterday afternoon at 15:12 local time.  A dual frequency (121.5 and 243) was being picked up by sarsat in the area EAST of Council Bluffs, Iowa.  I was told by the duty officer the Council Bluffs airport reported a negative ramp check.  There were no airborne reports and no overdue aircraft reports either.  I called our wing DO, LTC Tomlinson, for an aircrew for N6211E (which just had a new DF installed).  I also asked for a ground team for support.

Teams were dispatched and were advised that the target appeared to be strongest farther east than Council Bluffs.  Knowing there are many little farm strips and darkness would fall, the ground team dispatch seemed like a good idea.  Further, Captain Jansen called upon the members of our newest unit, Storm Lake, to participate in the search.

As the evening started to wear on I grew suspicious and called the FBO at Council Bluffs.  They admitted they had an ELT on the field but they had no luck in finding it.  I passed this information to our teams.  They converged on the airfield and located the ELT in a Cherokee 6 which had been flying earlier.

Things that went right:  It's great to send a ground team with an aircrew.  It makes 30 minute check-ins so easy because the ground team is in touch with the airplane and can call the I/C via cell phone for updates.  EMD had a new duty officer carrying the pager.  She was told that it 'rarely' goes off.  So we broke her in and she learned about CAP and ELT's.  The Pottawattamie Sheriff was very helpful, but we gave them a "stand down" call when we learned the signal was at the airport and no crash was evident.

Lt. Kim Kirschman and LTC Don Cox flew as aircrew.  The new DF is very sensitive and they reported hearing the ELT on the DF long before it was picked up on the VHF transceivers.  Thank you DSM for providing aircrew.  Captain Jansen and the Ames team returned around midnight to Ames.  Thanks to all who participated.

Things to remember:  I should have not trusted my initial briefing information and again called Council Bluffs, but they may still have been in denial.  Some people think they will get in trouble if they have CAP looking for an ELT.

It took me a little while to communicate to the sheriff's office folks what an ELT is, who we are, and what we needed.  They apparently got someone from the department who knew aviation to brief the communication folks so when I called back it went much better.

We flew 2.5 hours and used 10 personnel.  thanks to STORM LAKE for jumping in and getting involved.  Thanks to Captain Jansen for using this as a good exercise to train some more folks.

Footnote by Kim Kirschman:  After determining the ELT was located on the airport proper, we landed and used a handheld transceiver in an attempt to locate the offending aircraft.  Using standard body-shielding procedures, Don Cox was able to with some confidence narrow the search to a particular hangar.  The FBO confirmed the aircraft had been flown earlier and called the aircraft owner to unlock the hangar, confirm whether the problem was indeed his ELT, and turn off the unit.  The ground crews arrived at about the same time as the owner.  The owner did seem quite concerned that he might be "in trouble" and appeared to not quite believe it when informed that our interest was locating and shutting down the ELT, not penalizing him.  However, Captain Jansen did inform the owner that he should have the ELT checked and repaired as necessary so we wouldn't have to return.