Flight Service people would make great
private detectives. I cannot tell you
how many times we have found pilots who have not canceled flight plans on the
thinnest of possibilities.
According to our records, just here at
Albuquerque AFSS we usually have between 9 and 14 pilots per day who simply forget
to cancel their flight plans by the ETA.
Of those, about half will call and cancel within the first 30
minutes. That leaves about 5 to 7 who
cause us to start looking for them.
The first step we take in SAR is to determine
whether or not the aircraft has landed at his destination and simply forgotten
to cancel the flight plan. If they
landed at a towered airport during the time the tower is open, it is usually a
short search. If they land at an airport
with an open FBO, the first thing we do is call the FBO, who very graciously
sends someone outside to check all the tail numbers on the ramp. I cannot say enough about the patience and
willingness to help we receive from the FBO managers everywhere.
AFSS’s have lists
of phone numbers for every airport within their area of responsibility. We usually call the airport manager next, but
that is a business phone and if it is nighttime there
may be no one there. Frequently we call
the sheriff or the state police and ask them to dispatch a unit to the airport
to see if an aircraft with that tail number is on the ground. If it is, the flight plan is simply
cancelled.
Most of the time the pilots
do not even remember that the flight plan was not cancelled, and since we found
them we normally do not send it on to Flight Standards. The exception is a pilot who chronically
forgets to close.
The first official step in SAR begins at 30
minutes after the ETA with a QALQ. This
is a request sent by the destination AFSS to the filing facility, wherein we
are asking them to send the whole flight plan.
What most of you do not know is depending on who you filed with, we may
not have your full flight plan when you activate. If you filed with any Flight Service we
should have the data, but when you file with DUATs or another private vendor the
only information we have is: VFR, Aircraft ID, type of aircraft, departure
airport, destination airport, Proposed Time and Estimated Time Enroute.
When DUATs receives
the QALQ, they research their records for the flight plan and any subsequent
contacts with that aircraft and squirt it back to a Lockheed Martin AFSS. Now we
can look for the pilot’s data – name and phone number primarily. This is where we have come to love cell
phones. We hate those things when we are
briefing someone who is on a ramp in the wind with a noisy engine behind him,
but they have significantly changed our ability to find someone who has simply
forgotten to close a flight plan.
If it is a home phone, we will call there
and hope to find you. If someone’s wife
or husband answers we try to identify ourselves and ask if they know where you
are without alarming them. If no one is
at the phone number, or if they do not know where you are, then we prepare to
expand our search. Of course we leave a message with them to have you call us
whenever you get in.
At one hour after the ETA the real work
begins and we begin to be concerned that there is a possibility that you
encountered conditions which forced you to land somewhere besides where you
wanted to. We send out an INREQ, or
information request, to all the Air Traffic Facilities along your route of
flight, as well as the DUATS vendors, and we copy the information to the
national Rescue Coordination Center (RCC) to give them a heads up.
All AFSS’s, ARTCC’s and DUATs are required to
check their records to see if there has been any contact with your
aircraft. It comes in handy if you have called
Flight Watch and given a pilot report – which will automatically include a
position report – or had any other contact with air traffic. If so, it narrows our search corridor from
that point to your intended destination.
We are also required to physically check ALL
airports within 50 miles either side of your route to see if you have landed
short. Do you know how many airports
there are in southern
Though this procedure normally takes more
than an hour, if the pilot still has not been located and his ETA is exceeded
by two hours, we must send out an ALNOT or Alert Notice. We continue with the communications search as
the
The AFSS station that the pilot filed his
flight plan with may at this point pull the tape recording of the briefing and
flight plan and listen to it to determine if the pilot said anything that would
indicate if he could perhaps have deviated from his route – or landed at
another airport than the one listed.
I remember one guy who was filed to a small
airport late on a Sunday night, said on the tape that he was going to visit his
Dad. He had filed to
An ALNOT remains current until the aircraft
is located – or the
Statistics show that if people survive a crash
landing, their chances are good if they can be located within 24 hours. I am asking you to help us help you by doing
two things. File VFR flight plans that
are less than 4 hours in length. The
pilot who wants to save himself some effort by filing a 12 hour flight plan
from
Please give position reports, better yet –
give pilot reports. That way we will
have a better idea on where to search. Please
do not file the phone number of your FBO if you are landing at an airport 1200
miles away. If you know you will be
staying at a hotel – just mention which one and we will grab a phone book.
Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to cancel your
flight plan!
If you’d like to meet
Rose Marie, she will be working in the briefing area at