I didn't mention the false alarm in our briefing, but I mentioned the number of SAR incidents. They all start off as an alert, a warning. Until all the information is available, we are not certain whether it's an actual distress signal or a false alarm. Moreover, there are various degrees of false alarms as well, but the most prominent is when these beacons have been inadvertently activated when no distress is involved.
However, we will respond; we don't wait for full information to determine whether or not there's an incident. So if there is a suspicion there may be an incident, we will launch a SAR resource. Again, it may not be from the base in Trenton, but it could be one of our CASARA members who goes out, if they have the homing equipment to locate the beacon.
The RCCs at the same time will also do an extensive or exhaustive search of communications facilities, police facilities, and air traffic control to see if anybody is reporting maydays. Air traffic control will be contacted to see if there are any overdue aircraft. So there's a lot of information being correlated at the same time the aircraft is going out to hunt down the false ELT.
Normally we will put somebody on the ground or communicate with the folks on the ground and ask them to disable their equipment. Beyond that, if it's inadvertent and not criminal in nature, then we take no further action.
Part of aviation and boating education and information concerns the proper maintenance of this type of equipment to ensure it's functional, but also that it is not going to inadvertently activate. There are periods during each hour where you can test the equipment and these sorts of things. That's ongoing, but certainly, some of our resources are used to respond to false alarms.
However, I think the comfort is that we will respond, as opposed to waiting to confirm there is something happening, and that speaks to the timeline as well.