I was speaking to a pilot a few days ago who said that PHI gave assurances that in the event of such a "landing", an aircraft would be over the position within 15 minutes, circling the area and ensuring a rescue team were on it's way. Apparently, PHI have a hi-tech tracking system that can pin-point aircraft positions to a high degree of accuracy.
I've not been down to the GOM and I'm not familiar with that kind of system, so I wonder what went wrong? Even if a flight plan had been closed, wouldn't triggering 2 ELT's alert the PHI base that something was wrong?
Is this kind of setup typical for the operators down there?