Can RAAus Aircraft And Pilots Become Involved In Search And Rescue?

[jackc]

Title says it all,  Can an entity invite an RAAus pilot and aircraft to participate in search and rescue incident?   Can you offer to participate in same? 

IF say for another example, a friend or even a party not known to you becomes lost or missing in say a 4x4 somewhere and you offer to go look for them? Is this legal?  Under ordinary circumstances you cannot airdrop them a vehicle part or a comms radio etc, can this be done in these circumstances in the guise of providing emergency assistance?  Naturally considering all of the above circumstances involve being in a remote area not readily accessible by 2WD vehicle etc. 

[Area-51]

Mercy flights are legal, and the aircraft may require a HF radio for a start due to "remote" area; and the list will grow by around midday tomorrow...

[onetrack]

AFAIK, local Police take control of land-based searches, and utilise local volunteer organisations - and here in W.A., SES (State Emergency Service) personnel, to provide manpower for searches.

To join the SES as a volunteer, you need to apply for available SES roles and you need to attend training courses for that role.

As you should know from your military career, managing large groups of people for a common aim is all about management control, job allocation, arranging and setting up communications, and setting authority levels and reporting.

 

As an old mate said to me many years ago, when we were discussing rural bushfires and their response - "The hardest thing in this world, is try and organise volunteers when a fire has to be tackled. No-one wants to be an Indian, everyone wants to be a Chief".

 

Nothing has changed in that time - apart from more controls over volunteers being put in place. With any land-based SAR incident, local Police start the ball rolling, and may set up a local "incident response" HQ around the last known location or nearby.

This is all dependent on the decisions of local Police Commanders - who may elect to merely run the SAR from their station, or move it to a more suitable location - depending on the circumstances and the number of people involved, and whether a crime event may have taken place. 

 

As with all "controlled" operations, I would suggest you may offer your services as an aerial spotter to the local Police Commander in control of the SAR effort, after making yourself known to him, and stating your skills and capabilities.

I'd suggest he/she may, or may not, ask you to get involved. As a general rule, the Police prefer to deal with organised volunteer groups, that have a chain of command, rather than enthusiastic individuals.

How that pans out would vary greatly according to the scale, location, and circumstances of the search event.

 

We have had a recent local tragedy where a young married couple with their 3 young children, left Northam in W.A. at 1:00AM on Christmas morning in their old Range Rover, to travel to their family home in Kondinin, some 200kms away.

They never arrived, and the alert went out on Christmas Day, and considerable searching was carried out for the young family. The route was all good sealed highways.

 

Family members assisted in the search, as well as some members of the public, I believe. The Police did not put up any aircraft, which surprised me somewhat. Maybe that was a lack of manpower/cost decision amongst senior Police officers.

Monday came and went, with no results, and it was only on late Tuesday morning, a searching relative found the wrecked and rolled Range Rover, lying on its roof around about 20-25 metres from the edge of a main arterial highway.

 

The 28 yr old male driver of the Range Rover had obviously gone to sleep around 3:00AM, ran off the road through a patch of relatively light scrub, and the Range Rover rolled over an embankment, ending upside down adjacent to some high scrubby bushes.

The sad part is, the young couple were both killed in the rollover, but the 3 children, aged 5, 2, and 12 mths, survived with little injury. The eldest, the 5 yr old girl apparently released the baby from his car seat, and thus saved his life.

But the kids stayed in and around the car in 30+ degree heat for 55 hrs, whilst searchers looked for them - and didn't see them, or the car.

 

I know this area well, and I fail to understand how the car was not found earlier, it's all moderately undulating wheatbelt country with excellent visibility. I can only guess the colour of the car blended in well with the scrub colour.

Plus, the traffic levels on that highway would have been almost non-existent on the Monday, and low on the Tuesday.

I would have thought someone in a ultralight aircraft would have had early success in finding the car, if they had been involved. There are plenty of local aviators, but no-one went up, AFAIK.

 

I would guess the holiday break period didn't help any - and the problem is trying to figure out what people might have done, when they "disappear".

That is 99% of the problem, trying to figure out if they had a mental relapse, wandered off on a different route, just wanted to disappear, or if they had met with some kind of accident - and if so - exactly where?

This then guides the search area, and Police often spend time researching the vanished parties "profile", by asking relatives, and establishing whether or not they were involved in something illicit, and didn't want to be found, or if they were regular honest people, who had just simply run into trouble.

 

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/disaster-and-emergency/three-children-miracle-survivors-of-kondinin-crash-that-took-lives-of-parents-cindy-braddock-and-jake-day-c-9286598

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by onetrack

[old man emu]

8 hours ago, jackc said:

Can an entity invite an RAAus pilot and aircraft to participate in search and rescue incident?  

The killer of this idea is very simply COST. Despite the well-meaning pilot offering to use a privately owned aircraft, the conditions of use of the aircraft (payment for fuel) can't be set by a handshake agreement. In the sad example of the WA event, the local police would be too far down the approval chain to enter into a "contract" between the Government agency and a private individual.

 

The basic reason why volunteer pilots aren't called can be said in one word "LITIGATION".  

[jackc]

Well, I guess maybe I am weird, stupid or both.  Monetary cost is totally mine in consideration of helping others.

The buck stops with ME, I would cover my own costs for fuel required, maintenance to aircraft and any parts needed.

My time needed to try and achieve a satisfactory outcome.

 Insurance for the plane?  With all the PDS b/s these days, I would not be covered and IF I am unlucky enough to bin the plane?   Just go buy another or get it repaired.  Get killed?   I would go down losing my life knowing I was trying to help others. 

Passenger?  NO it’s a DIY deal for me, and me alone. 

[pmccarthy]

In my opinion, as long as you remain above 500 feet you can fly where you wish, unless there is another aircraft doing an official search. In the recent Rochester area floods, the emergency management people banned private flying for a few days, due to high traffic levels by emergency choppers. 

[jackc]

Not so sure I would want to be involved in ‘official’ searches, they know their work better than I ever would. 

There is a thing of having too many aircraft involved? And possibly being outside my personal risk assessment?

 My idea is more a personal thing, years ago I volunteered myself in a big flood using my boat to look for lost and stranded Cattle, that was a personal request from a property owner. 

He wanted to compensate me for it, I just said no, it’s OK as I have ‘booked’ it up to community service 🙂 

[turboplanner]

What OT and OME said. it’s a command system, but there are times when they call in volunteers, usually skilled bush walkers. It’s a workplace, so professional standards are required to prevent additional accidents, although when I see SES people using a chainsaw back and forwards like a handsaw on a 3 tonne branch my eyes water. Having said that, in the incident OT referred to you probably would have found the children a day or two sooner. 

[Yenn]

As a GA pilot I took part in a search. I had to be controlled by the nearest control tower. The plane I used had a faulty radio and another had to take off and relay messages for me, but that is nothing to do with the requirements. My search found the missing motor boat in a total trip time of 20 mins, after a five hour search by Air Sea Rescue. Boats. All caused by a drunken sailor.

[facthunter]

One search I was called out on at short notice had us(two) driving a DCA F 27 with about 10 observers. GA Aircraft down in Bass Strait. Nothing found. Low level coastal. Some time in '69. Nev

[onetrack]

Jackc - The best principle for an aerial search is a minimum 2-place aircraft, with the PIC concentrating on flying the aircraft, while a trained observer scans the terrain.

 

Too many light aircraft pilots have come to grief at lower altitudes, whilst concentrating on looking at the terrain, and for the sought-after item or person, and forgetting to concentrate on flying the aircraft.

 

There is also the visibility design of the aircraft to be taken into account. A large proportion of aircraft do not lend themselves to expansive and good cockpit visibility, when it come to scanning the terrain below, and just in front of the aircraft.

 

The WAPOL Air Wing owned a Partenavia P-68B Observer in the 1980's which was an especially good aircraft for observation. For some reason (possibly high operating costs or poor reliability), it was not owned by WAPOL for too many years, and it wasn't replaced with another, or with any other equivalent observation aircraft, when it was sold.

 

https://www.airhistory.net/photo/304080/VH-PGN

 

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by onetrack

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, jackc said:

Well, I guess maybe I am weird, stupid or both.  Monetary cost is totally mine in consideration of helping others.

The buck stops with ME, I would cover my own costs for fuel required, maintenance to aircraft and any parts needed.

I wouldn't call you "weird, stupid or both".  Your attitude is the same as decent people. However, it only takes one person to stuff things up and either drop an invoice on the authority, or have their family sue following injury or death.

 

Everything is tickety-boo until someone goes to a lawyer.

[facthunter]

IF you really wanted to go checking on someone do it till the "Authorities" ask you to go away. The NEWS people get in the way often to serve their own interests.  Same as if a neighbours house caught on fire .Nev