It was a dark and stormy night many years ago when an ELT signal was reported by a small commercial aircraft operating in southwestern BC. (This was long before the days of SARSAT and the ELT location was very general.) The usual comms procedures revealed no overdue aircraft and DOC was called to locate what was thought to be just one more inadvertent ELT activation. Later that dark and stormy evening, 442 Squadron in Comox received a tasking to take a look. A Labrador crew was called and a chopper readied for the tasking. During the preflight comms check a receiver was tuned to 121.5 MHz and a very strong ELT was heard. As the chopper prepared for takeoff someone called, "could you check our ELT just to make sure …" A few minutes later the Labrador crew were able to advise that they had very quickly located the source of the inadvertent ELT!

Allister Pedersen is the Cranbrook Training Officer and worked as a radio inspector in Vancouver chasing ELTs and EPIRBs during the 1970's.