Mercury article on rescue flights.

[Blister]

Have just posted for general interest and discussion.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/20 ... -news.html

[ILUVSWTAS]

Before we hire them out to our mainland visitors they should have to sit some kind of breifing on the importance of not using them unless it's an emergency.

[Turfa]

The article implies that Bushwalking Tasmania is opposed to charging people to be rescued.

I have often thought it would be very worthwhile to impose a nominal charge on a rescue. If you knew it was going to cost you say $500 if you activated your PLB, you might think a little harder about whether it really is an emergency.

And if I really did need rescuing from a life threatening situation, I'm not going to care about the charge.

[doogs]

I have often thought it would be very worthwhile to impose a nominal charge on a rescue. If you knew it was going to cost you say $500 if you activated your PLB, you might think a little harder about whether it really is an emergency.

And if I really did need rescuing from a life threatening situation, I'm not going to care about the charge.

Unfortunately $500 wouldnt be enough of a deterent for some.
If I ruled the world , I would have an advertising campaign similar to the succuessful reckless driving one. In that ad the girls waved their pinkies at the bogan trying to show off (I think they were insinuating something, went right over my head!). My ad would be 'Don't be a princess in the Tasmanian wilderness.' or something like that.

[taswegian]

It always annoys me in instances of dramatic search and rescue where the rescued sells the story.
This should ALL be paid to search and rescue in my opinion.

I think I'd would feel compelled to contribute if I was plucked out of the wilderness.

But where does one draw the line? Free ambulance rides? Rescue teams sent to car accidents? Roof blown off in wind?
It's a hard call.

[tasadam]

Gotta love the media...

Wasted police rescue flights is the heading...

It is understood the Westpac Rescue Helicopter has exceeded its budget by $1.8 million this financial year because of a spike in call-outs.

If all but one of the flights were "wasted", and one resulted on the saving of a life, wouldn't it be worth it?
Another thing, how much is the budget?
THIS article suggests

The Premier announced that Labor would fund a $36 million emergency medical helicopter, to be based in Hobart.

Maybe they've slashed the budget, which is why it's been blown out? But not quoting actual figures in the media makes for a sensationalist read, "wow, nearly 2 million dollars..." Take it with salt until you know the whole story. Anyone know how to find out? If $36 million is correct, that means the budget was blown out by a whopping 5 percent.
If every bit of Gov't spending in Tas was over budget by ONLY 5 percent, then surely the state would be in a lot better financial position than it is now. (Getting too political if I start quoting off-topic over budget spending).

Mishandling of Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons, Personal Locator Beacons and the Emergency Local Transmitters used in aircraft resulted in 14 alerts

Perhaps you should be fined if you "accidentally set it off" or some other "mishandling". The mind boggles, how you would accidentally set one off due to "mishandling".

Two hoaxes and 11 undetermined... Two people that really SHOULD be prosecuted. I wonder what "undetermined" means?

If their budget is short by $1.8 million, perhaps they should be allocated more money?
As more and more people enjoy the outdoors, more PLB's will be out there, and more people will genuinely believe they "need" to be rescued.
If there are 5 percent more people carrying PLB's into the wilderness, perhaps it stands to reason that the rescue budget also be increased by 5 percent? Problem solved...

What I would really like to see is the statistics for -
From the number of PLB activations, what percentage were bushwalkers?
Of the PLB's that were activated by bushwalkers, what percentage fall into the category of "not wasted"?

That will separate the boats and planes etc, and the stolen PLB's from boats that get hid in a tree and activated, from the bushwalkers. I believe that the figures won't read as bad for bushwalkers if you look at the data accurately.
Some data is hidden in the article -

All but one of the 12 helicopter missions launched for land-based searches, including to rescue bushwalkers in the summer of 2010, involved adventurers from interstate or overseas.

So in the summer of 2010 there were 12 land based searches. Only 1 of them was a Tasmanian.

Take a close look at the data of "wasted" call-outs and spend a bit of money educating on the correct use of the beacons to those that need it, perhaps?
(wow, look at all that typing, the coffee WAS strong this morning!)

[DaveGwy]

I'm sceptical about the article.. and tend to agree more with tasadam. A 5% budget exceedance doesn't sound that bad. I'm sure the budget would be exceeded in lots of different areas (say for e.g. MP wages ) but no fuss would be kicked up.

I also think it's a bit rediculous to blame 'mainlanders'. Sure, more 'mainlander' bushwalkers were rescued than tasmanians, that makes sense. But if you look at what % of PLB activations were hoaxes, I'm sure almost 100% of hoaxes would have been conducted by tasmanians. Who comes to another country/state to set off a PLB as a joke? (Not that many.)

The other thing is, in my opinion, there is only 2 classes of activations. Hoaxes and non-hoaxes. I don't have a huge problem with people activating a PLB for what we would think is "not a good enough reason". I would rather that they did activate it, then not activate it and through inexperience or whatever, get into more trouble. I am happy paying (via taxes) for people to be rescued, for whatever reason. However, I'm obviously not happy paying for hoaxes.

In all honesty, I think it's the hoaxes (PLBs up trees, etc) that need to be cracked down on.. not people in the bush setting them off for what we think isn't a genuine reason. It's not my place or anyone else's place to say - "Oh you weren't really in trouble" - You can't say that unless you were that person, in that particular situation.

[walkinTas]

I don't think that this "blow out" is anything more than the inevitable result of more inexperienced people carrying more PLBs. There has been a big push to have people carry beacons since the introduction of 406Mhz PLB. For the last few decades there has been a continuing increase in the number of people bushwalking. If more inexperienced walkers go bush with more beacons then it stands to reason that there will be an increase in call-outs. There should have been a corresponding budget increase. Like maybe a 5% budget increase! ....but what are the odds there will be a cut-back in the coming budget?

[Blister]

If you knew it was going to cost you say $500 if you activated your PLB, you might think a little harder about whether it really is an emergency.
And if I really did need rescuing from a life threatening situation, I'm not going to care about the charge.

I second the above.

[Azza]

My impression was that the fair percentage of calls out for the helicopter were car crashes to airlift people to hospital.
It would perhaps be wrong to assume that its only PLB calls out responsible for blowing the budget. Fuel prices are up too.

[ghosta]

Rescue of Bushwalkers is really only 1/3 of the story of these distress beacons.

It is now compulsory to carry a beacon in a boat going outside sheltered waters. So if my boat engine breaks down I will activate my beacon, where before I would make my own arrangements for rescue via phone or radio. The government must have been dumb if they didn't understand that there would be more beacon activations by making them compulsory under the circumstance I outlined.