On the evening of Dec. 23, California’s Malibu Search and Rescue received a call for a missing 78-year-old male with dementia who was last seen several hours earlier when he went out to retrieve his mail. The call came in at 7 p.m. when the temperature was 48 degrees and falling. The area around the missing man’s home was remote wilderness with canyons and mountains. David Katz, team leader for Malibu SAR, said the team launched their drone almost immediately upon arrival at the scene over the area to look for heat signatures using infrared technology. Within just a few minutes, they found a heat signature about 100 yards over the side of a cliff and were able to send rescuers with medical equipment to make contact. The man was non-ambulatory, suffering from exposure and was transferred to an ambulance after the SAR team carried him out.
Malibu SAR’s drone picked up a dementia patient’s heat signature within minutes.
Malibu’s drone program was launched only three months ago as a pilot program for the SAR teams of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and already has been deployed more than 20 times, said Katz, adding that this was the drone team’s first find. “It was a great find, because who knows if we would have gotten to him quickly,” Katz said, noting that ground teams can only do so much in the dark. “If you put up an IR-equipped drone, it’s not looking in one place, it’s scanning the entire area.”
More SAR teams have begun using drones as the technology improves, donors make it possible for teams to own them, sheriff’s departments allow it and more members are certified to fly. Kyle Nordfors, chair of the MRA’s UAS committee and the leader of Weber County SAR’s drone team in Utah, has been consulting and assisting teams in establishing drone programs since 2018 and estimates that at least 12 MRA teams have established programs. “It is a wildly useful asset,” Nordfors said, adding he is seeing more teams interested as news of success with drones increases.
Indeed, in the past few months, several MRA teams have successfully used drones to make finds. In early December, Douglas County (Colo.) used a drone to locate a 10-year-old boy who had gotten lost on an ATV in a remote area. The team had coordinates from a 911 call and the drone flew over the location, immediately spotting the boy in his ATV. The drone was used to communicate with him via a speaker system, asking him to give a thumbs up if he was uninjured and ok, which he did, said Darren Keralla, head of Douglas County’s UAV team who flew the drone on that mission. The drone was then able to come back and drop a bag with supplies, including a hat, blanket, food and water. That helped the boy stay warm until rescuers could arrive on ATVs to bring him out. “The drone played a critical role, but it’s just another tool in SAR,” Keralla said. “It was a team effort.”
Aerial view of Douglas County’s lost ATVer location.
Rescuer reaches 10-year-old lost on ATVDrones are being used by teams in various scenarios – to reduce searcher risk by flying over inaccessible or dangerous areas, to hasty search at night when thermal imaging is more likely to find someone than a ground team, to communicate with subjects once located and to drop supplies. Some teams have also used drones to communicate with their own members who are out of radio contact, using a speaker to instruct them to change radio channels or return to base. Weber County SAR has had a drone program for the past six years and is using them on almost every call, said John Sohl, a team leader and drone pilot. Drones are used to illuminate medical scenes, help rescue teams find safe egress, and the team is even testing a large drone that can fly up to 80 pounds of gear, like a litter, helmets and rescue equipment, to a rescue site, Sohl said.
Vail Mountain Rescue utilized their drone and its thermal imaging in November to locate a paddleboarder who was reported missing at night and was found by the drone deceased in a river. Interestingly, the heat signature that was detected was actually the paddleboard itself, said Brent Cartwright, head of VMR’s drone team. The woman was in the water next to the board. Cartwright said without the capabilities of the drone, the find would most likely have been delayed at least until daylight.
Marin SAR’s drone team getting ready to launch.
In July, Northern California’s Marin Search and Rescue team utilized a drone to reduce risk for searchers and had a successful find. The Marin drone team, which was formed less than a year ago, located a missing man who had fallen in a steep cliff area in the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco. In the second operational period, when the man had been missing for five days, forensic cell phone data had indicated that the man’s phone had last pinged near a remote beach that was flanked by cliffs.
“We had a search area that was technically challenging and we wanted to be able to eliminate certain areas prior to putting rescuers over the side on a vertical slope with loose, crumbly rock,” said John Pope, who leads Marin’s drone team. In the first flight, the deceased man was located at the bottom of an 800-foot cliff on the beach behind a rock and hidden from view of water craft searching from the shoreline.
All the teams said they require their drone operators to have the Federal Aviation Administration Part 107 license, and most also train with their sheriff’s departments and have team trainings as well. Marin requires an annual joint training and recertification for its volunteer drone operators, who use their own personal drones. Malibu uses drones that were funded with private donations, but are owned by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Vail, which has had a drone team for several years, has four drones that are owned by the team and also allows pilots to use their own drones if needed.
The MRA’s Nordfors provides advice about which equipment is best for teams, education about how drones can aid in searches and also how an individual team might best use drones. Differences in terrain, types of searches, and even weather, will mean that uses will vary for different teams, he said. Barriers to entry for teams to establish a drone programs can include resistance from leadership and finding funding to buy appropriate equipment, Nordfors said. Once they use them, though, teams are usually totally convinced, he said. “It’s a lifesaving asset,” Nordfors said.
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