EPIRB Error Hinders Rescue Response...
A clerical error in the registration of an EPIRB was a factor in an 87-minute delay in the Coast Guard’s search for the scalloper Lady Mary, which sank off New Jersey in the predawn hours of March 24 with the loss of six of her seven crewmembers.
The unique 15-character identification code embedded in Lady Mary’s EPIRB signal differed by one character from the EPIRB code assigned to the 71-footer in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s database, according to testimony at a May 7 Coast Guard inquiry in Cape May, N.J.
The character in question was a “C,” which a clerk working for a NOAA contractor erroneously transcribed from the mailed-in registration form as an “O” in NOAA’s database during the beacon’s initial registration in January 2007, according to the testimony of Dan Karlson, a NOAA program analyst.
Because of that discrepancy, when the EPIRB activated and sent its alert signal to a NOAA computer via satellite, the computer couldn’t find the EPIRB’s identifier code in the database, so it classified the beacon as “unregistered.” The EPIRB, a Satellite 2 406 MHz beacon manufactured by ACR Electronics, was not equipped with GPS, so it couldn’t transmit its own position. It had to rely on satellites to figure out where it was.
In an interview after the hearing, Karlson said a Geosar (geostationary) satellite picked up Lady Mary’s emergency alert at 5:40 a.m., but these satellites can’t calculate an EPIRB’s location.
“The computer couldn’t find the registration information, and it had no location,” says Karlson. “The system had no actionable information [from the EPIRB] to work with.” So it held on to that information until a Leosar (low-earth orbiting) satellite passed over Lady Mary and fixed the EPIRB’s position using Doppler effect technology.
Leosars pass over most points around the globe once every hour-and-a-half. A Leosar had passed over Lady Mary 15 to 20 minutes before it sank, Karlson says, so it was a long wait for the next pass. The Coast Guard received its first alert from Lady Mary’s EPIRB — along with its location, courtesy of the Leosar — at 7:07 a.m., 87 minutes after the beacon first activated.
Legibility issue
Had Lady Mary’s EPIRB been properly registered, the response could have been quicker. The computer would have found the identifier code in the database and passed the emergency alert on to rescue coordinators immediately. They would have used the identifier code to pull up the EPIRB’s registration information — the owner’s name and emergency phone numbers — contacted him, found out where the Lady Mary had been fishing, and sent a helicopter right away. Then, they could have contacted the National Marine Fisheries Service for the last position report from the transmitter on Lady Mary that NMFS uses to track commercial fishing boats, and used that to help pinpoint its position.