Palwaukee Composite Squadron

ILWG alerted for ELT reports in NW Chicago suburbs
Capt. Jim Griggs
Public Information Officer

On Wednesday evening, 19 May, AFRCC notified ILWG of multiple airborne reports of a distress beacon heard in Northern Illinois. Mission number was assigned as 10M0358.

At approximately 1900 hrs Local, Incident Commander, Major Andrew Welch, began requesting assets for the search. Two aircraft, one from Palwaukee and one from DuPage, ultimately responded to this request. In addition, two UDF teams and a number of Communications personnel responded as available to assist.

Airborne reports from Northern Illinois were from a variety of locations, with altitudes ranging from 7000-18,000 feet. In the current environment of not having SARSAT to narrow down geographic area, the ground footprint was rather large initially. As the first aircraft was assigned numerous areas to listen from ORD to Hinckley, IL, no signal was initially acquired. Then, in the vicinity of rural Kane County the beacon was heard for a short time, and then lost in the area west of Elgin, IL. Although supported by outstanding communications relays provided through the evening, all subsequent attempts to re-acquire the signal were unsuccessful.

At that time, the ground personnel were attempting to acquire the signal in the area, also with no success. There was initially what was thought to be a ‘carrier-only’ signal heard near Casa de Aero (68IS), but it was ultimately determined to be electronic ‘noise’, possibly from local manufacturing sites in the area.

After a lengthy period of loss of signal, IC Major Welch had all units stand down at approximately 0100L. Major Welch had this comment: “I want to personally thank all who responded to this mission. Even though the signal went dormant after many hours of trying to home in on it, an outstanding job was done by all!” Those responding were:


COMMS
Maj. Jim Bartel IL189
Capt. Bill Watson IL282

AIRCREW:
Lt Col Lou Wipotnik IL049
Capt. Ken Stone IL049
Capt. Rod Rakic IL312
Maj. Gerry Baumgartner IL189
1st Lt. Lawrence Hebda IL274

GROUND UNITS
Maj. Bob Dempsey IL049
Capt. Jim Griggs IL049
Capt. Scott Murphy IL312
1st Lt. Scott McKnight IL049
1st Lt. Chris Gillman IL049
1st Lt. John Trimarco IL049
C/Capt. Adam Wallace IL312

PIO
Capt. Jim Griggs IL049