News
High cost of trashed EPIRB
DANIELLE MCKAY - The Mercury (2010-02-04 18:59:22)
TASMANIANS are again being urged to dispose of EPIRBs responsibly.
The call comes after an expensive rescue effort resulted in an emergency beacon being located in a rubbish dump.
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter was sent from Hobart to Launceston on Wednesday after a distress signal was picked up by commercial air traffic about 8.30pm, setting off the chain of command.
Aus Search and Rescue immediately chartered the police rescue helicopter and the signal was eventually tracked to a tip site at Ravenswood.
It is estimated that the call-out cost more than $8000 because the Westpac helicopter costs about $3300 an hour for private hire and it attended the call-out for 2.6 hours.
Launceston Police were also forced to contract a bulldozer to help efforts to dig up the EPIRB and deactivate it.
Sergeant Paul Steane of Police Search and Rescue said people's ignorance and laziness were draining valuable police time and resources.
"We got to bed at about 3.30am after searching for the beacon in the tip," he said.
"Then today we're up the [East] coast to the drowning first thing in the morning and then out to Lake St Clair for a rescue.
"To be honest, we had better things to do with our time than spend all our night looking for a beacon in a tip. It's frustrating; it's not hard to do the right thing and dispose of it responsibly."
The old 121.5MHz EPIRBs became obsolete when the satellite was switched off on February 1 last year.
There was a spate of false alarms from dumped EPIRBs in Tasmania after that shutdown.
People disposing of EPIRBs are urged to leave them at Battery World outlets to be recycled, or see www.mast.tas.gov.au [go back...]
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