Using ADS-B to locate crash site

David Megginson

David Megginson

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Last year, a US-registered Bonanza departed OSH for Danbury, CT, then diverted hundreds of miles north into Canada to avoid storms, before crashing in a sparsely-populated area of Quebec. After four days, it was the ADS-B track from Aireron satellites that led SAR within 250m of the crash site (the plane was outside radar coverage).

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-...dOXvQaOoF4xkeAwB3iro2wXl--LBHWMTrmME1j5mkFuso

The pilot died on impact (6 ft deep crater), so the 4-day delay, fortunately, didn't cause any loss of life. Now Canada's JRCCs have integrated ADS-B into their standard ops. It's also comforting to know that the bottom-mounted antenna on the Bo didn't prevent the satellites from tracking it.
 
I'm rather hoping sat based 1090ES ADS-B will soon allow us to eliminate the money we waste maintaining our almost useless ELTs.
 
GRG55 said:
I'm rather hoping sat based 1090ES ADS-B will soon allow us to eliminate the money we waste maintaining our almost useless ELTs.
Click to expand...
I agree that 121.5 ELTs are pretty worthless, but aren’t 406 ELTs many times better?
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I agree that 121.5 ELTs are pretty worthless, but aren’t 406 ELTs many times better?
Click to expand...

Is the % of time 406 ELTs actually activate when they should any higher than the abysmal record of 121.5s?
Don't they both depend on an accelerometer switch?
 
GRG55 said:
Is the % of time 406 ELTs actually activate when they should any higher than the abysmal record of 121.5s?
Don't they both depend on an accelerometer switch?
Click to expand...
Enough deceleration to trip the switch, but not enough to rip the antenna wiring out.
 
The Canadian military rejected ADS-B as an alternative to a 406 MHz ELT because the ADS-B doesn't give any indication that there's been an accident until someone reports it or reports the plane overdue.

I agree with others that much of the time the ELT doesn't give any indication of a crash, either.
In this case, the accident plane had only a 125.5 MHz ELT (unmonitored), but since that was destroyed in the crash, I expect a 406 MHz ELT would have been as well.
 
GRG55 said:
I'm rather hoping sat based 1090ES ADS-B will soon allow us to eliminate the money we waste maintaining our almost useless ELTs.
Click to expand...
An ELT battery every two years is a lot less expensive than the ADS-B I don't have.

But I agree that an ELT would seem to be redundant with a sat based ADS-B.
 
David Megginson said:
The Canadian military rejected ADS-B as an alternative to a 406 MHz ELT because the ADS-B doesn't give any indication that there's been an accident until someone reports it or reports the plane overdue.

I agree with others that much of the time the ELT doesn't give any indication of a crash, either.
In this case, the accident plane had only a 125.5 MHz ELT (unmonitored), but since that was destroyed in the crash, I expect a 406 MHz ELT would have been as well.
Click to expand...

When the ELT doesn't go off, and that happens in too high a percentage of cases apparently, not only does SAR not know there's been an accident but when they are informed a plane is overdue if an ELT is all the airplane has SAR has limited to zero information as to where to start looking. The OP example in this thread is a good one.

I've got the cost of the ELT and the Garmin InReach subscription to overcome that deficiency.

A few years ago two friends of mine did the stupid VFR into IMC thing in the mountains. When they hit the granite the 406 transmitted for less than 1 minute before the flames engulfed the wreckage as it slid down the mountainside. It was their SPOT tracker data that allowed them to be located. Not that it made any ultimate difference in this instance.
 
David Megginson said:
Last year, a US-registered Bonanza departed OSH for Danbury, CT, then diverted hundreds of miles north into Canada to avoid storms, before crashing in a sparsely-populated area of Quebec. After four days, it was the ADS-B track from Aireron satellites that led SAR within 250m of the crash site (the plane was outside radar coverage).

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-...dOXvQaOoF4xkeAwB3iro2wXl--LBHWMTrmME1j5mkFuso

The pilot died on impact (6 ft deep crater), so the 4-day delay, fortunately, didn't cause any loss of life. Now Canada's JRCCs have integrated ADS-B into their standard ops. It's also comforting to know that the bottom-mounted antenna on the Bo didn't prevent the satellites from tracking it.
Click to expand...

This doesn't seem like an ordinary weather detour. There is something else missing from this story.
 
sarangan said:
This doesn't seem like an ordinary weather detour. There is something else missing from this story.
Click to expand...
The TSB report speculates about whether the pilot realised his ADS-B in was no longer receiving FIS-B updates once he'd traveled a couple of hundred miles north of the US/Canada border. Agreed, it's a bizarre detour — much further, and he could have hit James Bay (technically, the Arctic Ocean).

He was also at 12,000 ft for a long time, so mild hypoxia might have affected his judgement.
 
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