NOASARA responded to its first SAR Actual of 2003 (JRCC Case 0007) on the morning of Thursday, January 16th. JRCC Trenton called with satellite coordinates for an ELT, and advised that high-flying aircraft had also reported receiving ELT signals in the Thunder Bay area. Although the initial satellite coordinates put the ELT out over the harbour, the signal was quickly localized by a NOASARA ground crew to the Keefer Terminal. There, in a Port Authority boathouse behind the Canadian Coast Guard base, a transmittintg EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) was discovered on a workbench and deactivated.

EPIRBs are used on marine vessels, and this unit had recently been removed from a boat undergoing winter maintenance. It was a "Class A" model, which transmits on both 121.5 and 243.0 MHz and is designed to float free of a vessel, activating automatically on contact with water. It is not known what triggered this dry-land activation, but condensation may have been a factor. Like aircraft ELTs, the "Class A" EPIRBs are being phased out in favour of those that transmit on 406 MHz.

NOASARA crew responding: J. Minor, B. Hansen, C. Smith