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via Ultralights; ...I have a spot messenger, haven't had to use the SOS function on it yet (the epirb part of its functions) but the pre set messages come in real handy to let those in a responsible position to know you made it to each destination safely...
Here's an interesting compare of a
121.5 ELT and a SPOT in the same accident...
...“The passenger noted that while boarding the airplane in McGrath, he happened to notice a SPOT satellite personal tracker clipped to the pilot’s sun visor. He said that after the accident, he was able to find the SPOT device in the wreckage, and began pushing the emergency SOS button.…About 2030 family members in Wasilla, Alaska, the pilot’s hometown, received an emergency SOS message from the pilot’s SPOT device. A family member then immediately called the operator in Aniak to alert them of the distress message.”
The author of this report, NTSB senior air safety investigator Clint Johnson, says that the Cessna was carrying a functioning 121.5 ELT. However, it could only lead Alaska Air National Guard pilots to within five miles of the aircraft, and cloud cover prevented the rescuers from finding the site that day. The next morning, an HH-60G helicopter from the Air National Guard’s 210th Air Rescue Squadron located the crash site, landed, and evacuated everyone. The breadcrumb tracker’s GPS data took rescuers “right to the doorstep of the accident,” says Johnson.
The same week, Johnson was assigned to five other aviation accidents. “Out of those,” he says, “more than half involved SPOTs—that’s how they found them.”
Lost in America | Flight Today | Air & Space Magazine
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