Survivor Story:

Rented AquaFix™ PLB Aids French Journalist in Distress

Journalist Daniel GrandClément was rescued recently off the coast of Yemen thanks to a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB), an ACR AquaFix™, rented at oscoOr.com.

On October 19, 2006, GrandClément was covering the migration of refugees from the shores of Somalia to the neighboring Yemen for the well-known French TV show “Thalassa.”

“There were 129 crew and passengers onboard a 12-meter-long boat, (120 refugees, 8 crew and myself), when we left Somalia,” said GrandClément. “The sea was rough and the harsh conditions disturbed the crew and passengers. During the cruise, I kept my beacon that I had rented close to my thigh.”

GrandClément, who previously produced a 52-minute report on “Search And Rescue” at sea, knows how important it is to be quickly and precisely located in case of distress.  Knowing that his journey was perilous, he took care to bring with him the finest safety equipment with which to be located in an emergency, the ACR AquaFix™ 406 GPS I/O PLB.

“As it was night, we were approaching the coast; the traffickers capsized the boat to get rid of the passengers,” he said. “Once in the water, thinking that I might faint from exhaustion due to the hard journey, I took out the PLB from my pocket and set it off immediately. Unlike my satellite phone, that was ineffective because of the water, the PLB worked perfectly.”

The activation occurred at 19:14 UTC. Within seconds, the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system relayed the AquaFix™ 406 MHz signal to the French Mission Coordination Center (FMCC) in Toulouse, where GrandClément’s rented PLB registration data was maintained.  The FMCC routed the alert message to the foreign ministry in Paris for verification.  The officer on duty called the “Point Of Contact” that GrandClément listed on the PLB registration form.  From this moment onward everything happened very quickly.  The consul at the French Embassy in Sanaa received the alert message and contacted the Yemeni Coast Guard who directed a search party to the rescue site.  Meanwhile, GrandClément managed to swim to shore where the Yemeni search party picked him up. 

“Everything worked very well,” said GrandClément. “All the people to warn were warned.  I received total support from the French authorities in Sanaa.”

Indeed, the Yemeni authorities confirmed that after a few hours of search they found the brave and foreseeing reporter in healthy condition and little worse for the wear of having narrowly escaped tragedy.  By 01:00 UTC on 20 October, the consul at the French embassy in Sanaa received response from the Yemeni authorities saying that GrandClément was in good care.

Advances in PLB technology have made transmission, location and rescue faster than ever before. ACR's AquaFix™ 406 PLB broadcasts critical GPS coordinates, providing Search and Rescue crews with latitude and longitude, thereby increasing emergency response speed by pinpointing positioning within 100 meters (110 yards).  The COSPAS-SARSAT satellites also locate the 406 MHz PLB using a technique based on the Doppler Shift principle for redundancy and reliability.

Worldwide, the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system has led to the rescue of 20,300 people since the program’s inception in 1982.

ACR Electronics, Inc., a Cobham plc Company, designs and manufactures a complete line of safety and survival products including EPIRBs, P-ELTs/P-EPIRBs/ PLBs, AIS, SARTs and safety accessories. The quality systems of this facility have been registered by UL to the ISO 9001:2000 Series Standards.  Recognized as the world leader in safety and survival technologies, ACR has provided safety equipment to the aviation and marine industries as well as to the military since 1956.