Thats the beauty of something like spot, i activate its tracking before i take off, so, in the event of an emergency, if i forget to activate the SOS feature, there will still be a breadcrumb trail to me. if its damaged or destroyed in an accident (i also carry mine in my pocket) then there will be a last location at a maximum of 15 mins away.

That's good; so in the Savvy they will have pinpointed your accuracy to around just a few miles :ok:

hahah yes, but even so, its not hard to estimate a pretty accurate position, given a breadcrumb trail will give a pretty good indication of track and speed. so, given the last know position at a said time, you know the aircraft track across ground, and its speed. not hard to figure out where to start looking for it. even if you dont know its track after the last point, at least you will have a circle of a given diameter to look in.

I had a cattle station in the Upper Gascoyne in the 1970s. The country around Cue is dry and isolated; bloody hot in summer and the nights can be cold for a few hours before morning comes around in winter.

But it seems to me that this guy was a bushman and would therefore not only have water and rations with him but would think it so normal as to not warrant mentioning. He navigated himself on foot over a fair distance, including at night, to hills that he knew were there. Pretty good effort I reckon.

If you know the area at all then this will give you a laugh...

"The Upper Gascoyne local government area includes around 52 cities, towns, villages and localities including Coolingbah Outcamp, High Range, Koolyin Hills, Boonwarrah, Carrandibby Range, Coondoo Outcamp, Coondoo, Tallangatta Outcamp, Deathtrap Outcamp, Black Range, Coonantha, Pells Range, Priathanna, Wigemburna, Bigina, Doordwoordoo, Kylietharra Outcamp, Coongarracoodoo, Coyerbooroo and Gascoyne Junction."

The whole shire has a total population of only about 330!

Local government area for Gascoyne Junction in Western Australia - Bonzle Digital Atlas of Australia

Kaz

Failure rates of ELTs are extremely bad, I had to research this last year and the results weren't good. The ATSB have some good statistics and data on their website about the topic.

The pilot did extremely well to get through the whole event, good airmanship and survival techniques kicked in by the looks of it.

The Geraldton Guardian has done an extended story on the crash, with added details.

"Miracle pilot" tells more of his crash story

He's definitely an experienced local with adequate bush knowledge - but one does wonder what would have happened if he hadn't been able to get a phone signal?
He must have had some familiarity with the Telstra coverage map - because mobile phone coverage is pretty much non-existent in the area he came down in.
There's obviously a cell tower at the mines in the area where he departed from (Gidgee Mine) - but apart from that tower, there's a lot of tiger country with no phone coverage in that region between Cue, Sandstone, Leinster, Meekatharra and Wiluna.

The primary advice to all, which is wise advice, is never to leave your aircraft/vehicle in the Australian bush, if you're in trouble.
SAR people can spot an aircraft or vehicle much more easily than a person - even if the person is in a clear area.

It's obvious he took a calculated gamble that he could speed up the search - but the police still had trouble locating him, even after he made his initial call.
I don't think he really helped himself much at all, the aerial searchers would have spotted the Cessna within a relatively short time after he was reported overdue - it's not like it's dense vegetation with a thick canopy out there.

Folks,
Looks like another one to chalk up to a failure of a fixed ELT, keeping up that better (worse) than 95% failure rate in the real world.
Tootle pip!!