We have developed a powerful tool called the Environmental Data Server. This goes to a great variety of National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Navy and academic sources of wind and current data that are updated several times a day. The Server translates all this data into a common format. While we’ve been talking, it’s already gotten all that data.
How much of a factor do ocean currents play in this type of search operation?
The idea is to look at the wind forcing on the surface current, major ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, and currents made by river discharge. The ocean is a very dynamic area and we have less data out there than we do for the atmosphere. To help, during cases we deploy a self-locating data marker buoy, an oceanographic surface drifter that has a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit on board to report its position to the ARGOS system, which allows us to compare ocean drift to numerical models we have available to see which is doing better and is more accurate right now in the given case.
What kind of air and sea craft does the Coast Guard use in search and rescues?
We generally use helicopters, C-130 planes, boats called cutters, and motor life boats. SAROPS allows us to optimally place those craft available to us so we have the greatest likelihood of detecting missing people in an area.
What are the deployment tactics for the different kinds of search and rescue craft?
What we have for this variety of aircraft and vessels is the probability of detection from 100 percent down to zero percent as a function of lateral range, which is the distance off your flight path or track line. So we know if we’re flying a helicopter at 300 feet (90 meters) at 90 knots (105 miles or 165 kilometers per hour) that we can see a person in the water at a certain probability of detection away from the track line of the helicopter. We account for effects such as white caps on waves in model range curves, because they decrease the visual effectiveness of a search. The ocean surface is a very tough place to find someone. Even though we’re searching many, many square miles, the bare fact is that the ocean is very, very large, and you’re very small. It’s like looking for a soccer ball – the person’s head above water – in an area the size of the state of Connecticut.
How do the parameters of searches change as time passes?
Now if search and rescuers do locate someone, like they did yesterday, then we go all the way back to the beginning of the scenarios and readjust them accordingly. What we’re really doing is flying these lateral range curves against all these particles and each particle then gets adjusted in its probability of not yet being detected. In a three-hour search, a particle will move relative to that search, so it may be more advantageous to search from north to south, rather than south to north, for example. All these particles start with a 100 percent probability that they have not yet been detected, and after each pass, or each time we fly over, we’re going to reduce that amount by where the lateral range curve fell over the particle. That allows us to optimize the next series of search patterns accounting for all the previous patterns, which is called a Bayesian update. We’re using all the modern applied statistics in our search and rescue efforts.
How much of the search is up to commanders at the scene?
The computer suggests a set of optimal searches but is not the final authority; the search and rescue controller is. The computer may have said that the poor small motor life boat has to search up and down with seas coming across its beam. The controller can take each individual pattern and manipulate it interactively onscreen to be operationally more acceptable and also see how this affects the probability of detection.
What do you think the chances are of finding the remaining three missing boaters?
Well, I shouldn’t speak to that as I don’t own the case. But the question does get at another whole aspect of our search and rescue procedures – survival models. We have models that work very well in cold water scenarios, though these guys are not in cold water. It’s a heat-loss versus heat-producing from shivering model. When you’re out in the water, you have an insulating layer of fat and an insulating layer of clothing. This is a situation where being big and fat or muscular is helpful.
The survivor that we have located suffered hypothermia – the physical and cognitive decline that happens when your body loses more heat than it produces – because he was out there for 36 hours or so. The body’s core is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius), so he was losing heat to 65 degree Fahrenheit (18.3 degree Celsius) water. He was also dehydrated, which exacerbates hypothermia. Besides losing heat, you also lose water through metabolism, respiration and sweating, and that does come into play in warmer waters. There are still more steps like predation [from sharks] and running out of food, though we don’t have models for those yet. Basically, these guys out there are now at the edge of the survival model.
Is that why the Coast Guard has called off the search?
Yes, that and because of where they have already searched. If more information comes to light, they could reopen the active search, but that is unlikely. Unfortunately, despite our technology and best efforts, not everyone who is lost at sea is found.
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Add CommentI was for about 50 years a private pilot, flying over europe and the mediteranien, over the sea. I have no understanding that somebody going fishing or flying over sea doe not buy or rent the necessary live vest and a satelite telephone with GPS capability. When Glider flying I had always a parachute but never had to use it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn hindsight one wonders why auto inflating PFD'a with GPS EPIRB was not worn by each peson going offshore. This link may help:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.thehulltruth.com/marine-electronics-q-boe-marine/92522-safety-advice-please-read.html
Jerry Pamer
Maui
Acoustic search techniques should complement visual ones. With their underwater listening systems, navies can track whales for thousands of miles. Marine biologists have microphone equipped buoys that can record sounds from whales five miles away. These systems could be used to search for survivors, the Coast Guard should deploy such buoys in search areas. Boaters should add simple underwater pinging devices to their emergency gear. When in trouble, they could enhance the chances of their rescue by making noise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis weekend, someone in a kayak was lost near Portsmouth (New Hampshire). Banging SOS on the hull of his overturned boat could have saved him - the submariners nearby must be listening all time.
JP
HEY, COAST GUARD KEEP GOING AND FIND THEM TIL YOU FIND HIS STUFF LIKE SHIRT OR PANT OR SOMETHING FLOATING THEN THAT MEAN THEY WERE DROWN OR ATE BY SHARKS OR ALLIGATORS.. KEEP PRAY HARD AND FIND THEM, DONT GIVE UP.. THEY MIGHT ON COAST YOU NEVER KNOW.. CHECK OUT ON COAST AND FLOAT OR ANYTHING U FIND.. DONT GIVE UP UR FAITH..THEY ALL IN MY PRAYERS AND IN MY MIND.. BY THE WAY MISSING'S PARENT IM SO SORRY IT MAKE U GREIF AND TORN BUT KEEP UR FAITH AND DONT GIVE UP YOUR HOPE.. I KNOW GOD WITH THEM , SIGH.. FIGHT WITH COAST GUARD...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOHH One more thing anything happened to me or others in lost in sea or forest or dry land anywhere that lost , in your mine and my mind too to take water and light with you and with me too always and good idea to grab cell phone in ur vest pocket for emgerncy but one high problem is no service or contract with tower that a big problem but in case yeah good idea never know.. Always always grab water and light.. Keep ur mind, include me.. :-)
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