|
October 2, 2009, Lancaster, Texas, USA
Missing 9-Year Old Boy
Nine-year-old Laquentis had been missing for nearly a full day from his suburban Dallas home. Police and canine units from several jurisdictions and several hundred volunteers were unable to come up with any clues in 22 hours of searching.
Then they called in the Texas Department of Public Safety AS350B helicopter equipped with a Power Sonix PSAIR22A 600 watt recessed PA system. Broadcasting the boy’s name, description and clothing over the neighborhoods near his home, it took just a few minutes for the boy to be located, ending the prolonged and expensive search effort with a happy ending.
Click here to see the special news report of this rescue from the Dallas area.
Power Sonix systems are used for SAR everyday by police aviators around the world.
|
March 18, 2010, Brookings, Oregon, USA
Missing 4-Year Old Girl
Four-year-old Zoey wandered away from her mountain-side home near Brookings, Oregon on the afternoon of March 17, 2010. Within an hour a search was started. Over 60 volunteers, officers from several police and county sheriff’s departments, a Coast Guard helicopter and a They searched all night in 40°temperatures and into the next day with no sign of Zoey. FLIR cameras could not find her heat signature. Searchlights could not find her.
The next day, the Sheriff called in the Oregon Civil Air Patrol (CAP) plane piloted by Capt. Scott Bakker. His plane is equipped with a Power Sonix PSAIR12 300 watt PA system. The search team pre-recorded a message from Zoey’s grandmother reassuring her, letting her know she was loved, that she was not in trouble and encouraging her to stand up and make some noise so searchers could hear her. Shortly after those broadcasts, after the aircraft had left to allow searchers to better hear, and just before what surely would have been a fatal second night in the cold, a searcher heard noises and found Zoey underneath very thick brush.
The CAP broadcast was credited by search leaders and Zoey’s family as having given her renewed strength and prompting her to make the noises she made that led to her eventual discovery.
Capt. Scott Bakker, Oregon CAP and his “Zoey” search crew.
|