High tech lets searchers zoom in

The classic American schooner Nina under sail, owned by David Dyche III, is missing en route from the Bay of Islands, New Zealand to Newcastle.

New systems can narrow down a huge rescue area in less than an hour after a distress beacon is activated

Searchers can now locate and rescue people missing somewhere in a staggeringly large area in as little as 40 minutes thanks to advancing technology.

The Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand co-ordinates major maritime, aviation and land-based search and rescue operations in New Zealand.

A team of 14 senior search and rescue officers, who staff the centre 24 hours a day, use various aviation and maritime tracking systems to help locate missing people.

When a distress beacon is set off within the 30 million sq km search and rescue area, the systems help them to work out how to respond to the distress call as quickly as possible.

Senior search and rescue officer Geoff Lunt has been working at the centre in Wellington for 10 years.

"Modern technology definitely makes the job easier," he said. "It helps us solve the puzzle about where these boats, planes and helicopters got to before they went missing."

Mr Lunt said the amount of time it took to locate someone depended on circumstances, such as location or terrain.

"The fastest from activation of the personal locator beacon to hospital was 40 minutes. It can be really fast."

Systems include long-range maritime tracking information which allows the centre to locate up to 60,000 vessels worldwide.

Officers can select a vessel and zoom in to see what it is, where it is going and its position, Mr Lunt said.

A search planning tool works out the drift of an object in the water in real time, and Google Earth makes it easier to see if objects, such as mountains, might have interrupted flight paths. "It helps us respond a lot more quickly and effectively. It is really good to get this technology and be able to use it to get a good result."

The Rescue Co-ordination Centre relied on six low-Earth-orbiting satellites to pick up distress beacon signals, which were tracked through a separate system, Mr Lunt said.

All commercial air traffic travelling in or out of New Zealand was monitored and a system called TracPlus let searchers home in on any helicopter in the country and find its flight path, he said.

The centre can then use the last known position of the aircraft to try to work out what direction it might have travelled in next, and how far it could have gone before it went down.

Officers were required to weigh up the possibilities and probabilities of what pilots, skippers and crew members might have done before they went missing.

Mr Lunt said there were 48,000 registered personal locator beacons in New Zealand and he urged anyone travelling in remote areas to make sure they had one with them.

"Anyone who is going out needs to make sure they have the knowledge, experience and equipment to get themselves out of difficulty if need be."