South Australia Police officers got a close look at one of AMSA’s search and rescue jets in Adelaide last week. Officers stepped aboard to meet the jet crew and explore the technology that supports searches across land and sea.
Visits like this help agencies learn about each other’s roles and equipment. They also help build strong working relationships before an emergency happens.
Combining resources to save lives
Our Rescue Coordination Centre – Australia in Canberra receives distress alerts and coordinates maritime and aviation searches. For some incidents, it transfers coordination to another authority which takes the lead. State police, for example, are responsible for land searches.
In South Australia, local knowledge and state rescue services can work with AMSA’s long-range search aircraft. Together, they bring the right people and equipment to a search.
Our jets add speed, endurance, sophisticated sensors and communications to a response. South Australian Police and other state agencies provide the local command, specialist rescue teams, vessels, helicopters and ground resources needed to reach people and bring them to safety.
Get on board and in the air
- Transcript
Seargant Frisby: Sergeant Ryan Frisby is my name. I work over at PolAir of South Australia Police. It’s fantastic to finally be able to get on board, have a look at all the technology and understand a lot more about the roles that everyone plays on the aircraft. You know we have a lot of jobs where SAPOL and AMSA work together and being able to actually put some context to how they do their role has been outstanding.
Lachlan from AMSA: So my name is Lachlan. I’m an aircraft mission coordinator on the Challenger 604 aircraft which includes coordinating the mission from the air and we will use all of our mission equipment, the search equipment, the radar and the observer team as well as the pilots to ascertain a good outcome for that search.
The SA police, we’ve worked with them for quite a bit. I think they were quite amazed at our aircraft’s capability. I think the ability to get anywhere into South Australia quickly and then the search and rescue capabilities we have once we’re there. So the use of our radar and our mission equipment is certainly something that they seem to be quite interested in.
Seargant Frisby: I think the biggest thing for me is the ability of the response time for AMSA. We’re limited with our capabilities with helicopters and fixed wing to get to the full length of our state. It covers almost a million square kilometres. The AMSA jet wherever it can be deployed from in Australia is usually in any tip of our state within 2 hours which is outstanding capability that we can’t fulfill. So working together enables us to provide the best service to our community.
Our high-tech, long-range rescue jets
We operate 4 specially modified Bombardier Challenger 604 search and rescue jets. These are based in Perth, Melbourne and Cairns and are ready to respond at short notice, 24 hours a day.
The jets can travel at commercial airliner speeds, stay in the air for up to 8 hours and fly up to 7,037 kilometres. They have the range to fly our vast search and rescue region which extends to our Australian Antarctic territories and large sections of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans.
Each jet has radar, cameras and equipment that can locate distress beacons. Crews can also use special cameras to help spot small targets in the water. Radio and satellite systems allow them to stay in contact during a search.
When the crew finds a person, vessel or aircraft, they can share the location with other search and rescue teams. The jet can also drop essential supplies and communications equipment to people in distress while help is on the way.
Working together when every minute counts
The South Australia Police visit highlights how national and state capabilities work together.
By sharing knowledge and maintaining strong relationships across the search and rescue community, agencies can coordinate faster, deploy the right resources and deliver a safer, more effective response when every minute counts.
Learn more
- What is a distress beacon and how do they work
- Prepare for a trip and find contact numbers for search and rescue
- Learn more about search and rescue cooperation in Australia
