My experience with CAP in SAR mode has been uniformly negative, from the Appalachians to the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada.


CAP threatened my Dad and a family friend with arrest after Dad located a missing aircraft and orbited in his Super Cub while coordinating with a friend in a helo to land near the site to check for survivors. According to CAP, they were "interfering with a SAR operation". State Troopers who were summoned to the scene declined to arrest and had a pretty "vigorous" discussion with the CAP commander. As discussed above, CAP took credit for the find and and totally refused advice from pilots with several hundred years of collective experience in finding wrecks in that area.

Rumor has it that CAP has wrecked more airplanes than they have found crashes. I tend to believe it. They are pretty much the laughingstock of aviation in the southern Appalachians.