Spot off ...WTF?
It was a terrible accident and my sympathy goes to everyone that it touched..
My take away is that due to there being several sars amateurs in the notification chain (the skipper's wife and the race officials), the SPOT distress signal took over 11 hours to reach SARS professionals (the US Coast Guard in this case). The skipper's wife did not have (or heed) clear instruction to forward a distress call immediately to the USCG (even in the case of a missing position fix). She made the wrong 'judgement call' to delay.
If the distress call had been made on a PLB, it would have reached the Coast Guard in minutes (and a rescue craft would have been launched within 30 minutes even without the position information).
The take away is that the friends and/or family who receive a SPOT/INREACH distress notification need to trained/instructed to immediately forward the message to SARS professionals (Coast Guard, Mountain Rescue Squad, Sheriff etc..).
I agree with Daryl that the best combo is SPOT/InReach with active tracking in the plane and a PLB on the parachute shoulder strap.
Base on this case, it seems that the GEOS personnel, or perhaps just the individual working at GEOS in this particular incident are/were not properly trained SARS professionals. (I hear that you get what you pay for. But ironically there is no subscription fee for PLBs.)
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