false beacon rescue man may be prosecuted

[wayno]

I cant paste the link from my phone. Article in the greystar the guy who set off his plb in nz because he was running late may be prosecuted by authorities. They are considering it. Maritime nz

[Strider]

http://www.greystar.co.nz/content/weary ... ted-rescue

P.S. I am posting this from my phone

[Lindsay]

Great link. I like the story about the woman arrested for being drunk in charge of a horse.

[andrewbish]

"the man, in his 60s and believed to be a vastly experienced mountaineer and author on the subject.."

Anyone able to name this person?

[wayno]

Great link. I like the story about the woman arrested for being drunk in charge of a horse.

just another normal day on the west coast of the south island....

[wayno]

heres a great rundown on how SAR is coordinated and executed in NZ according to the nature of the rescue, with or without a beacon being involved

http://www.windy.gen.nz/index.php/archives/2517

and which law is being used to try and prosecute the man in question

"The RCCNZ didn’t provide direct references about what it has in mind, but it looks like a reference to this 2003 declaration that makes broadcasts by EPIRBs legal in the first place. It grants a general licence to use an EPIRB “for the transmission of radio waves for the purpose of obtaining assistance where safety of life or property is threatened”. The declaration is made in line with Radiocommuniactions Regulation 9, declared under section 116(1)(b) of the Radiocommunications Act. That section of the Act enables a possible $30,000 fine if a regulation is breached, or a $250 infringement fee. In other words, the RCCNZ proposes to use a regulation that’s primarily designed to protect New Zealand’s radio spectrum from interference to prosecute a person for requesting a rescue."

[wander]

That would be a very interesting precedent, world wide in fact.

[wayno]

just looks like someone in maritime nz has an axe to grind over the issue and wants to make an example of this guy and was just looking for anyway they could to prosecute him. the law they are using wasnt designed for incidents of this nature...
as the article states, it wasnt a police run search , htey dont technically control teh searches set off by locator beacons, maritime nz does
hte police werent involved in the search anyway, so he couldnt be prosecuted for wasting police time. even so the police are reluctant to put people of calling for a rescue and avoid prosecuting people for unecessary search and rescue operations.

[izogi]

Hi @wander.

That would be a very interesting precedent, world wide in fact.

Author of the blog post that @wayno linked to here --- do you mean that it'd be an international precedent of using radio spectrum rules to prosecute an EPIRB activation, or did you have something else in mind? How is the radio spectrum and EPIRB activations handled in Australia? I'm not certain if the RCCNZ's ever used this regulation to prosecute boaties. They might have, but I don't follow that side of things. I'm fairly sure it's never been used (in NZ) to prosecute land-based SAR.

To be fair on that rule, it does at least state that you have to have an emergency to activate, but there's clearly a lot of interpretation involved. I'm mostly uncomfortable with the use of a rule/law which addresses the specific technology used (an EPIRB) instead of the actual issue (requesting an unnecessary rescue). It can only confuse people.

I think part of what's going on here is that Maritime NZ/RCCNZ has a much more historic role with maritime searches, and has only recently begin to coordinate land-based SAR-ops (mostly only rescues). In the last few years it's gained a much bigger land rescue role, but (as it's all EPIRBs) the operations it's involved in almost never have a search component of the same scale as what the Police often coordinate. Consequently, in day-to-day operations, I'm not sure the RCCNZ has as much of an appreciation of the value of encouraging people to take care and be clear about what they're doing. This is reflected in its publicity all over the place, which is basically all about how fantastic EPIRBs are with no reference to any other safety precautions. And then the RCCNZ gets maddened with superfluous activations, of which I think this latest one was just a trigger.

[wander]

Most Nations that have laws and regulations covering the use of radio include clauses about miss use of some sort or the other. Very rarely prosecuted, it is very hard to collect rock solid evidence and most enforcement agencies have higher priorities. In the example discussed here the "evidence" is probably there for presentation to the court. At some point the political (press and public opinion) pressure will be there to extract some costs for abuse of the rescue system.

The info we are missing is why was the protagonist running late? Was he suffering from say symptoms of heart issues (or some other heath issue) or did he discern a change or possible in conditions (for example weather) and become concerned that should he be late then he would be in an unsafe situation? Without exploring these sorts of questions it is a bit easy to jump to the conclusion that the call out was frivolous.

[wayno]

i believe at least one article claimed he was running late because his trip was taking him longer than expected

[izogi]

@wayno, that's more or less what the RCCNZ's press release states: http://www.maritimenz.govt.nz/news/media-releases-2013/20130208a.asp.

The quote from a helicopter pilot which appears in some articles, with the pilot saying he had "underestimated the time" and was "struggling with the terrain" seem to have been inserted later by various media outlets, but the entire tone of everything published is still that of the original press release which is basically a collection of emotive accusations-without-provided-evidence from the RCCNZ.

Bizarrely the press release stops short of clearly stating he did anything wrong---it's entirely about how he "appears" to have done something and "if" he did it then he's a wasteful idiot whom everyone should hate. The lone provided fact to justify all of this is that he was uninjured when collected, hardly a first for EPIRB activations. The possible inference is that if you're not injured then you should never activate an EPIRB or you'll be prosecuted for a potentially massive fine, which is rubbish. He may have done something inappropriate, but the style of this whole press release, considering how the media was obviously going to relay it to the public, was unprofessional.

[mattmacman]

Good, use the money too subsidise PLB's.