WATERTOWN – Three people with ties to Brookings were part of a mission Tuesday to locate a distress signal from an aircraft that turned out a little different from what anyone expected, according to Lt. Col. Bruce Kipp, director of public affairs for the South Dakota Wing of the Civil Air Patrol.

Cadet 2nd Lt. Jaden Petersen and Cadet Tech. Sgt. Andrew Sweebe were part of the search, and Maj. E.W. Filler is the squadron commander in Brookings.

On Tuesday evening, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., requested assistance from South Dakota Wing in locating an aircraft emergency locator transmitter reportedly broadcasting in the vicinity of Watertown, Kipp said in a press release.

“Col. David Small took on the role of incident commander and began activating resources to begin the search,” Kipp said.

Small and his 15-member team of volunteers sprang into action, wherever they were at the time. “Suddenly, (they) shift gears when they don’t know if they’re gonna be out all night or not,” he said.

“These ELTs – the beacons on the airplanes – are designed if they hit something hard, they are supposed to start transmitting,” Small said, comparing it to an airbag in a car going off.

Just like an airbag, when an ELT goes off, it often means a serious situation.

“What goes through our minds is, ‘Do we have injured people in immediate need?’ So speed is of the essence. We’ve got to have air crews and ground crews on call 24/7, ready to respond immediately because there might be somebody – if a plane had, God forbid, crashed – and they had broken legs and were bleeding, our response time matters, so we want to respond as quick as we can,” Small said.

A transmitting ELT is a hazard for aircraft flying overhead and air traffic control, which will hear it as an aircraft in distress, so it needs to be found and silenced, Small added.

A Sioux Falls-based Cessna-182/G100 took off toward Watertown. At the same time a Sioux Falls-based Ground Team and a Brookings-based Urban Direction Finding (UDF) team were organized and dispatched, Kipp said.

Petersen, Sweebe and Filler were on the UDF team, which went to the Watertown Regional Airport and used hand-held radio-direction-finding gear to search the area, he said.

“While flying toward Watertown, the CAP search aircraft picked up a strong ELT signal broadcasting from Arlington Municipal Airport. The aircraft landed at Arlington and directed the Ground Team and the UDF Team to come there,” Kipp said.

Small’s team traced the emergency signal to a plane in the Arlington airport and found the owner, who came and shut off the signal.

“When we found the one in Arlington, (we thought) OK, we’ve done our job for the evening. And no, we hadn’t,” Small said.

When he contacted the Watertown Regional Airport manager to let him know they’d found the signal and had it shut off, Small also asked for verification that Watertown was no longer hearing an emergency signal. He got a surprise – Watertown was still getting an emergency signal.

“I have to be honest, I did scratch my head and wondered about that,” Small said, laughing.

It wasn’t a total shock, since their training had covered scenarios with multiple emergency beacons, but it did beg the question of where the other beacon was coming from.

The UDF Team, which had joined up with the Ground Team at Arlington, headed back to Watertown Regional Airport, Kipp said. Before they arrived, the airport manager was able to find the plane transmitting the signal, which was at the Watertown airport, and had the owner silence the other ELT.

“They were both safely in their hangars, tucked in bed,” Small said.

“I was very proud of (my team),” he said.

“I hugely appreciate our volunteers who instantly jump and respond,” Small said, citing the Brookings team who was headed home, thinking they were done after finding the Arlington plane, then turned right around and went back to Watertown.

“Two ELTs active at the same time within 40 miles of each other is an extremely rare occurrence,” Kipp said. “With both ELTs shut off, the search aircraft and ground teams returned to base and the AFRCC closed out the mission.”

Getting that confirmation was a big relief, Small added. About a month ago, Small’s team responded to a crash in Meade County, where they were able to locate the downed aircraft from the air and guide the sheriff to the location.

“That’s why we take this seriously, because too often it is real,” Small said.

As much of a head-scratcher as Tuesday evening turned out to be, Small isn’t complaining.

“We would rather err on the side of a signal being sent when the airplane didn’t crash, rather than a real crash where we never heard the signal,” Small said.

For more information about the Civil Air Patrol, South Dakota Wing and their connection to the Air Force Auxiliary, visit gocivilairpatrol.com online.

The CAP will be doing an exercise at the Watertown airport on Saturday, June 3, Small said.

“We’re gonna have our aircraft there, we’re gonna have our search teams there and we’re more than happy to invite the public to come out and watch and ask about CAP and learn about it,” he said.

The Cadet Program accepts children at age 12, and it has members of all ages, from all walks of life, and you don’t have to be a pilot, Small said.

“My oldest son got into it when he was 12, and that’s what got me in it. The reason I’m wing commander today is I very passionately believe in what CAP does for our young people. The quality of young people we turn out is just absolutely incredible,” Small said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.