Emergency Beacons for Search and Rescue
By registering your beacon you allow search-and-rescue authorities in an emergency to retrieve crucial information about you, your aircraft or vessel, and people who can provide valuable information about you (your emergency contacts).. Registering your beacon may make the difference between life and death.
Your registration information is maintained in databases that are operated by governments and/or the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat (depending on choices made by the government associated with the “country code” programmed into your beacon). The information about your beacon that you place in the registration databases is for use by search-and-rescue authorities, and is viewable only by them, associated government agencies and the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat. NO information that you place in the registration databases is made available to commercial entities and it is NOT used for any commercial purpose whatsoev
When a distress alert message from your beacon is relayed to a national-government Search-and-Rescue Point of Contact (SPOCs) that has the responsibility to react to the alert, the information that you have provided during beacon registration is also provided to the rescue authorities. It is easy to understand how important this information can be to rescue authorities as they are organizing a search-and-rescue effort. Also, by attempting to contact you using your contact information, or contacting those that you have listed as emergency contacts during registration, rescue authorities are better able to determine if the distress alert is real or inadvertent. If the alert is real, they will have information that improves the chances of them finding you and saving your life. If the alert is inadvertent, it means that limited search-and-rescue resources are not unintentionally diverted from someone in real distress.
Just as important as registering your beacon when you first acquire it, is the need to update the information when your circumstances change. If you move the beacon to a different aircraft/vessel, or if the contact information for yourself or your emergency contacts change, you must update this information in the registration database. It is strongly recommended that you take a few minutes at least every two years to review and update the information in the registration database. This is a mandatory requirement in some countries. Likewise, if you sell or transfer your beacon to someone else, you need to indicate this in the registration database and encourage the new owner to properly register the beacon for themselves.