9000 expired Sar times- who pays?
 

The Airservices website mentions 9000 SARTIME s expire annually without cancellation.

Perhaps it’s just a handful that result in genuine S and R action.

The costs to chase these mistakes must be staggering!

Any suggestions on what we can do? Think of the money saved that could be used to promote flying training and other positive actions.

Let's charge all the people who forget!
Another cost to GA users yeah!

Car. Who do you reckon are paying now?

If it’s others ( mug taxpayers?) are you suggesting we in the aviation industry should not be concerned?

Clearly the system needs to be reworked. If done properly it may in fact promote usage of the system.

Perhaps an iPhone or Android app with notifications? Doesn't matter if there's no signal, it can still tell you when your time has run out and you can work out how to contact them and cancel your SAR.

Personally I don't use the SAR times system because I feel it is a "burden" on my time (as much as that may sound strange), not flexible enough for when I change my plans and I don't want to accidentally forget to cancel when I change my plans or arrive safely.

I'm available to run this minor project if AirServices wants to contact me.

I'm really not all that concerned about who pays now.

If you wanted to charge people a fee for forgetting to cancel, I'd imagine you'd create a much larger negative culture. You sound like CASA, wanting to fine people for things that really don't warrant it.
How many penalty units for forgetting to cancel SAR?


SWTT, now that's a much better idea, enhance and promote the system.

You don't need an APP or I-phone just a sense of responsibility for the privilege of being looked after if it all goes pear shaped.

Cancel the b&^%dy thing

:\:\

Identify the non complying sectors, determine the costs of the non compliance then we will revisit the situation in an attempt to come up with and apply a remedy. If the costs of follow-ups is considerable then maybe those potential cost savings can be reinvested in technology for the predominantly non compliant sector.

It would be nice to be able to lodge a SAR time without a flight plan being lodged.

Add that to the functional requirements. This new system is already looking useful like the new weather cams!

I would like to see a link for this article or release on over 25 flights a day failing to cancel SAR

I don’t reckon it would cost much at all. There are staff rostered on who are already being paid. If a SARTIME is not cancelled, they pick up the phone, speak to the pilot, get a cancellation, say thanks and hang up. You don’t pay them extra for doing their job.

It’s like a shop. No customers but staff are still being paid. You don’t pay them extra when they serve a customer.

9000 per year is 25 a day, about one per hour, hardly a burden. You have to stop tilting at windmills.

Unbelievably simple to solve. Ask advice and copy the success of others

Last time I checked New Zealand s Airways Corporation put on a charge each time a SARTIME was forgotten. Amazingly the problem was 99% solved!

Self interest is amazing.

Never mind, found it on other thread

Fujji. Love to meet you some time. You are certainly not a businessman. The difference between success and failure can be a razors edge .

But you need to employ people to follow up the lack of cancellation, issue the fine, and check the fine has been paid. So how much does that cost in comparison to the fine?

No, I am not a business person but some services are provided by whichever government for the public good. Police, fire, emergency services, search and rescue. Medicare is also funded from the public purse. Would you like to see health care to go to some of the overseas models?

I wonder if they all really needed to submit a SARTIME, how many originated from a flight school and were returning the same day?
There is already one on your phone it is called an alarm.

That's easy, you outsource it to an agency like AvData. They'll happily do it for a cut of the infringement fee. The fee needs to be large enough to cover the admin fee and also a deterrent, but not enough they the average punter can't afford it. Even my local council outsourced their parking infringement payments including outsourcing of the dispute process.


Fuji... ever heard of an FTE ?

No, I don’t think I have.

Pretty sure it's what Dick is eluding to. You need to calculate how much work or how many hours an employee is doing (or projected to do) so that you can budget for wages, training and cost of doing business and ultimately a charge-out rate. No difference between private enterprise and the government, as both still have budgets to meet.

Regardless of this taking perhaps 4 hours a day for one person, that 4 hours needs to be calculated as a .5 FTE (full time equivalent) for budgeting purposes. (Calcs may vary for 4 hours depending on the model or charging used).

FTE models work well in environments where a service provider services multiple clients like a service / help desk for example.

FTE thoughts don't work that well when working out pilot rosters in small companies but do work for Qantas and the likes of.

Is that the same one that has on numerous occasions previously gotten my airways charges wrong, billing me for flights that I never flew to places I never landed? Or is that some other company?

Settle meow, it was just a suggestion :-)

I call bull**** on the 25 per day SAR cancellation failures.

Even five a day brings in the “cry wolf” problem.

How do they know after six weeks of false alarms that the current one is real and someone is lying out in the freezing rain in their aircraft wreck.

That’s the serious problem I reckon.

I expect the cost overall to be lees than revenue lost from persons falsely using Dick's registration/s so as to not receive charges for certain services - this to the point Dick probably gets waivered charges due to his costs involved in the past that proved it was not him/his aircraft.

Maybe they have used your call signs too Mr Rod.

If you forget that your car park ticket expires - and someone checks, is it free?

I think the fact that AMSA etc are resorting to the likes of OZRunways tracking when aircraft disappear is a sign that things could be done better. This is just a part of it. Pilots aren't logging SAR times for whatever reason and the authorities and resorting to using third-party providers to locate aircraft.

Why would there be a "cry wolf" scenario?

As with beacon activations, each SARTIME expiry would be treated individually and appropriate action taken in a timely manner.

Ask them:

https://www.amsa.gov.au/safety-navig...escue/aviation

Probably because they treat them all as real?

For example the amount of times I've been sent out homing beacons that have ended up being in a tip somewhere, or wandering around the field with the antenna only to find an accidental epirb trigger, far outweigh the number of "actual" callouts I've been on where people have been floating in the water or stuck in the bush.
So in my experience they don't exactly treat their SAR obligations lightly.

So the financial waste must be staggering

Was the previous registered owner of the dumped ELT chased up and charged the cost of the search?

As has been said previously, just set an alarm on your phone for 10 minutes or so prior to SAR expiry. Simple and effective.
I have forgotten to cancel SAR a few times in the past and have had a call from the SAR centre asking politely whether I was safe. These gracious people always accept my groveling apology and even refrain from laughing.
I find it a bit hard to accept that 25 SAR cancellations are missed per day.

Bit hard when they weren't registered.
But since the change (uh oh there's that dirty word again!) to 406, which I am quite the fan of, there's been a lot less tip searching, effectively zero for me.

As for a waste? The false alarms yes, but you get idiots in all walks of life setting off false alarms (Emerg. Services calls etc) which you cannot stop.
But when it's real it's worth it. I bet if you or your family were the ones in need you'd be glad people went out looking. How can you determine its real or not without checking, have you got a better system for that Dick?
Bit hard to say "no, it costs too much it might be a waste" when you've got the family of the missing pleading you to help find their loved ones.

I wonder what the cost would be to have an automated system that sends an SMS to the registered phone number five minutes before SAR expires. Same for beacon activations; just a message saying "the ELT in your plane/boat has been activated, can you please check and call us on xx-xxxx-xxxx if it's a false alarm?"

It seems like that would solve 99% of the accidental false alarms, leaving more time to concentrate on either true alarms or deliberate false alarms (can't do much about the latter).

SAR is a responsibility of the Govt. They don't charge for it and I doubt they could due to their international obligation to provide SAR. I also doubt that 5 missed SARTIMES per day (the ones passed to JRCC) result in SAR action. In fact the only time I've heard of SAR action being taken for a missed SARTIME was for a genuine missing aircraft.

Another beatup.

Maybe, bend. I might have a few enemies who knows.

Point I was trying to get at here was that system has flaws. If we went to a "fine the forgotten sar pilot" then it's still open to the same sort of incorrect billing issues regardless of who administers it.
Now imagine if people were, under the fine system, getting sar under their false callsigns (unlikely but not impossible). Then they went missing. Completely wrong information being used to try and locate them.

With registered 406 beacons AMSA will call the registered owner. If no answer they will call the listed emergency contacts, which is typically family or friends, and ascertain some information from them if possible. Not only that but they have the home address and can get police around to the property to knock on the door or see if the boat is in the driveway or plane is in the hangar.
Registered beacons with contact info like this has already cut down on the number of "false" searches occurring.

Re SARTIMES...

Many 'Moons' ago, there was actually a proposal from management in CB, to introduce a 'pricing regime to discourage participation'....
(e.g. Charge $10 per SARTIME..???)

Can't remember exactly 'when', but was about the time of the cessation of FS to VFR aircraft- possibly not long after 12/12/91.

Fortunately, it was 'dropped'.

In Perth FSC, which covered the whole of WA, we usually had on average, one maybe every couple of months or so where someone would forget to cancel SARTIME....a simple phone call usually resolved the problem.

How come 9,000 per annum now?? Is this the 'x' or 'y' generation..??

No Cheeerrrsss....

I call bull**** on the whole thread. If these cancellation failures really exist, what is the cost when the staff who follow them up, staff from ASA to the cops, are already at work. If the failures cease to exist will people loose their jobs? It is funny how you are all attributing "cost" to folk already gainfully employed.

Look at something else Dick. We need your talents for useful stuff.

Dead right, just what I have been saying.

And looking at the actual page, of the 9000, 1800 were referred to the RCC which obviously shows the other 7200 were just the machine going Bing. 1800/year is just under 5 per day or around 1 per shift for the RCC. One. Hardly a job creator.

Introduce fees and/or fines for sartimes = less users of the system = less staff required.Which is probably what Dick is aiming for in the first place and also why ASA empire builders never went with it when suggested.
That said sartimes are yesterday's technology born out of necessity before full radio coverage,transponders and epirbs. Just how many backups do you need? In any event if you put in a 3hour sartime and ditch half hour into the flight you will be waiting 2.5hrs before they even start enquiring. Useless to you if bobbing around in the sea.

Oh, where's that?Common Sense says you wouldn't put in a 3 hour SARTIME for an overwater flight, and instead operate on skeds per AIP -