SARSAT stats

[TangoWhiskey]

Here are the U.S. stats NOAA presented at a SARSAT meeting at the end of August.

ELT - 18% of registered beacons 51% of false alerts
EPIRB - 51% of registered beacons 27% of false alerts
PLB - 31% of registered beacons 21% of false alerts

Put in overall terms, the US False Alert Rate by device type:

ELT 5.05%
EPIRB 1.12%
PLB 0.64%

There are 20 to 30 406 beacon activations per day. 90+% are false activations. High, but most are handled by a phone call to the registered owner. With 121.5 beacons the activations per day was in the hundreds.

World-wide beacon stats

Beacons made in 2012 (and production vs 2011):

69,300 EPIRB -3.5%
68,800 PLB +13.7%
22,000 ELT -10%

Of those beacons...

98,000 were Location Protocol, i.e. those with a built-in GPS or can be connected to one

68% PLB
25% EPIRB
7% ELT

The estimate is that of all the beacons world-wide, about 1.31 million, only 43.6% are GPS capable.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Is there a link for the 2013 data?

I assume the following is the equivalent presentation from last year?:

http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/BMW 2012_files/2012 BMW False Alert Stats 2012_NOAA.pdf