Last Update: 06/01/2006 1:07:15 PM

By: Reed Upton

A 911 tape from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department reveals that a pilot who crashed after running out of gas aided his searchers when he recalled he had a GPS device aboard.

Sheriff Greg Solano says rescuers initially knew only that 57-year-old Tony McClung had crashed roughly 20 miles north of the Santa Fe airport on Monday afternoon. “So we began a search, just vehicles, binoculars.”

Officials first learned McClung was in trouble about 45 minutes before the crash when he called 911 to report he was in trouble.

“Once he got up,” Solano said, “he checked his gauge and found out he was low on fuel.”

After the 911operator asked McClung if he recalled seeing any roads, arroyos or riverbeds, McClung recalled the global positioning system aboard his single-engine Cessna.

“No, but I have on… hold on: I have a GPS,” he told the operator.

Based on the GPS coordinates, a helicopter crew spotted McClung’s plane, which had broken into three parts

“The tail section was broken off,” said Solano, “and the front end had hit a tree and the front engine was almost sheared off.”

McClung suffered a broken nose, broken collarbone and a gash on his forehead, but Solano said it could have been much worse.

“He probably had some luck on his side,” said the Sheriff. “God was with him.” On Line Report with Pics and Video …..

OK< I’m certainly going to slug this posting under GPS Successes, GPS might well have saved this guy’s life or at the least prevented him from suffering from exposure and prevented the sheriff’s department from wasting a lot of time and money in the search.

However, I’m seriously considering adding a GPS Protects Fools category.

As a pilot for more than 40 years I am certainly not going to leap to the “Pilot Error” conclusion for every accident, but this, as reported, is an extremely egregious case of pilot error ….or perhaps pilot stupidity.

I just loved the quote, “Once he got up, he checked his gauge and found out he was low on fuel.” Hello? In addition to some simple common sense, Federal Law requires the pilot to check fuel to insure it’s sufficient for the flight to be undertaken. The pilot is also required to monitor fuel as the flight progresses and to land safely before fuel exhaustion … even if this requires modification of the flight.

To know you are short of fuel, and then to call 911 for help … instead of getting help from FAA flight controllers who have the training and resources to guide aircraft in emergencies to safe landings makes we really wonder about this guy’s mental capacity as well as his piloting skills.

I’m tickled pink that GPS helped get him rescued but I’m appalled at the situation he got himself in and very annoyed that the local television audience and the whole web might think that this is a demonstration of normal pilot skills and planning. I’m seldom an advocate of FAA intervention but this seems to be a case that the local FDSO (Flight Standards District Office) needs to take a really close look at.

Letters | A TAXI DRIVER’S VIEW OF THE GPS DEBATE

I would like to clarify exactly why Philadelphia taxi drivers are opposed to the installation of GPS systems.

The adverse effects of this contract are far reaching, and not limited to drivers. Longstanding customers will not be able to be serviced with any certainty or regularity due to drivers being forced to accept unwanted calls while en route. Once a fare is picked up, the driver will have to follow a computer-generated route, regardless of traffic, construction, etc.

As for driver safety, it is absurd to let a computer randomly dispatch calls to the city’s 1,600 cabs. When I pick up a passenger off the street, I take my life into my hands. I assess every aspect of every situation individually, and it keeps me safe. Letting a computer make that call is more than dangerous. It is negligent.

Stefan Weinberg, Philadelphia from Philly.com

When I see letters like this I realize why the acceptance of change seems to be difficult. If people load the dice before the crapshoot starts it makes it damn hard to have an honest game.

Mr. Weinberg seems to have some valid concerns. The problem is, someone has fed him so much nonsense about GPS that most of his issues just don’t exist … at least as far as GPS is concerned. In the brief letter it’s very hard to see if Mr. Weinberg is a malingerer or if the Parking Authority has fed the drivers nonsense or whether the overpriced, ethically challenged consultant the Authority has been wasting their money on is just helping stir the soup so that he can make people feel the project is sooo difficult that he has to keep sucking up the money tat ought to go to the public good. (more…)

Catching crooks is going high-tech, with GPS technology being trialled in police cars.

The system, called automatic vehicle locators (AVL), will allow central officers to take calls about burglaries, see which are the closest police cars and send them to the area from different directions in a bid to block off offenders.

The roll-out of AVLs to western suburbs police is planned for next year.

The trials are being held in Midland, with “impressive” results as well as odd hiccups.

Although GPS has been criticised as a form of “big brother”, Police Union president Mike Dean said the technology would increase safety for police.

“No one likes to have someone looking over their shoulder, but from a safety aspect they are a good idea,” Mr Dean said. Read Full Report Here:

This article has a number of good news aspects. I’m particularly interested in the idea that the management is realizing that GPS tracking can do much more than just make dispatch of existing assets easier. It can put more police on the street and cut down on the waste of resources involve din many fixed posts.

I haven’t seen too many US police agencies catch on to this idea yet, so Western Australia is really leading the fleet at this time

Crime and the need for police officers is an ever-shifting nebula. Build a police station at sight ‘A’ today because there is lots of crime in the area and the next thing you know crime will have moved to area ‘B”. I see this in my own city, millions of dollars spent on new satellite police station for reasons I certainly can’t understand. The average citizen never sees the inside of a police station. When he/she needs assistance a call to 911 brings the closest patrol and that’s that. Policemen never walk, so what difference does it make if the police station is 3 miles or 10 miles away. Unless they are looking for a place to play pinochle, the police belong in their cars … monitored, managed and kept safe with GPS tracking.

Tuesday, 30 May 2006

Magellan eXplorist 400When darkness falls over the Katrina-ravaged and mostly uninhabited parishes surrounding New Orleans, animal-rescue volunteer Annie Lancaster packs up her Magellan eXplorist handheld GPS receiver and goes to work. Her mission: making her way through the darkness to set and retrieve traps designed to help control the exploding population of free-roaming cats and dogs that were household pets until they were left homeless by last summer’s hurricane.

A veterinarian technician, experienced humane trapper and FEMA–certified volunteer from California, Annie is on her fifth three-week tour in the devastated parishes. In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, she worked to rescue stranded animals trapped on rooftops, in trees and inside homes. Now it’s a race to keep the spread of breeding animals in check.

“The animals don’t come out in the daylight anymore,” Annie said. “Cats and dogs are running wild; the dogs often travel in packs, and growing numbers of both cats and dogs are now being born feral. Our job is to work through the night to humanely capture as many of these animals as we can.” … Full Article Here:

When someone sees the words GPS and Pets together they tend to think immediately of hanging tracking collars on the pets and then sitting down at the computer screen to see what neighborhoods Fido is visiting.

But to do that kind of tracking you obviously need to purchase a GPS recover and some kind of tracking plan first. Can GPS hel-0p find pets that are lost and have no GPS transceiver?

(more…)