36 Days in Amazon rainforest after small plane crash

TxJim said:
I guess no 406MHz ELT in Brazil?
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Plenty of 406 ELTs in the SA. But as with most illegal flying they don't care to be found. Spent a few years working in the Amazon jungle on the Peruvian side and recovered a couple wrecks in the process. Quite an achievement for that guy to make it out.
 
LOL @ the monkey story. I spent several months in Panama doing jungle operations training back in the 80's and 90's. Little monkeys are vile creatures, and they do indeed mess with your stuff at night.

In that situation, I would probably have followed Nemo's Dictum: all drains lead to the ocean.
 
Would a PLB have been helpful for him to turn on in an emergency such as this?
 
Flies for shady mining company, engine quits first flight. Sounds almost like a movie. If I survived that long in the jungle...I probably would just elect to stay there.
 
In the 70’s, Ed Asner & Sally Struthers was found a month after a plane crash in Alaska.


Based on a true story.
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
Would a PLB have been helpful for him to turn on in an emergency such as this?
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Provided the PLB pinged the COSPAS-SARSAT network, yes. The private service PLBs not as much. Another issue is if the country you are in has dedicated a SAR system to come get you. But in this case Brazil does.
 
TxJim said:
I guess no 406MHz ELT in Brazil?
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Likely wouldn't have done much good. The airplane burst into flames right after the guy scrambled out of it, and burning ELTs don't work so well. It can take up to 50 seconds for a 406 to transmit GPS coordinates, and that's only if it is GPS-enabled. Otherwise it's just another homing device that transmits aircraft identity and runs at a higher frequency so that the Doppler effect reduces the size of the zone.

And that's one of the biggest problems with any ELT. Burning, sinking, crashing so hard that everything is shattered into tiny bits, all common scenarios. The future (if GA survives) will see a satellite tracking device that spits out a signal every few seconds, leaving a trail of "bread crumbs" for the SAR guys. The typical SPOT does it, but only about every five minutes. Not nearly good enough. You can travel a long way, in any direction, in five minutes.
 
Bell206 said:
Provided the PLB pinged the COSPAS-SARSAT network, yes. The private service PLBs not as much. Another issue is if the country you are in has dedicated a SAR system to come get you. But in this case Brazil does.
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Have always preferred the COSPAS network ones, rather than the SPOT, for that very reason.
 
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