Knowledge Centre
Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs)
Personal beacons, which were carried by the passengers on offshore helicopter flights to oil and gas installations, were withdrawn from service in March 2009 following the ditching of an offshore helicopter in the UK sector in February 2009 when it was found that interference from these had caused the ‘smart’ long-range beacons on the life rafts to shut down.
The smart technology fitted to the life raft beacons is designed to shut the beacon down if it detects another beacon signal within a certain radius. This is to ensure that only one high-powered aircraft beacon is transmitting at a time, which helps Search and Rescue operations to home in more effectively. However, in the ETAP ditching, the lower powered passenger PLBs (non-smart) were detected by the smart beacons, which caused all of the aircraft and life raft beacons to shut down.
The Helicopter Task Group worked relentlessly to bring PLBs back into use and this was achieved in February 2010. Please view details of the process at the links below:
