The Civil Air Patrol’s National Cell Phone Forensics Team recently achieved a milestone, recording its 1,000th find of a lost or missing person.
Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, conducts approximately 90% of all search operations within the United States as assigned by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC).
“Technology applications are woven into the DNA of the Air Force, and our Civil Air Patrol is no exception,” said Lt. Gen. Marc H. Sasseville, commander, Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region-1st Air Force. “Our Air Force Rescue Coordination Center has a 24/7 hotline right into CAP so that we can get help to our citizens as quickly as possible.”
Since its inception in late 1941, CAP has traditionally performed search and rescue missions by operating the world’s largest fleet of single engine piston-powered aircraft.
As a technology innovator, CAP adapts, adopts, and develops tools to make performing search and rescue and other emergency services missions more efficient, according to officials. Leveraging tools like cell phone forensics and radar analysis make it faster and easier to help find the subject of a search, even in situations when it is not possible to launch an aircraft due to poor flying conditions, remote locations, and more.
In CAP terms, a find is recorded when the team assists local searchers in locating a missing person. In the 1,000th find, a 29-year-old hiker was reported missing on the western slope of Colorado.
CAP has been carrying out cell phone forensics missions since 2006. CAP’s support began as a last-resort tool for locating missing persons and overdue aircraft, but has evolved into a primary resource for search and rescue, officials explained.
“Technology has changed how we operate,” said John Desmarais, CAP’s director of operations. “What used to take days of laborious searching is now done remotely using technology to find more people and find them faster.”
Cell phone data is often the first tool used in a search for a missing individual since most people carry their phone at all times. For example, three individuals who recently survived a plane crash in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts may not have survived until morning due to exposure to subfreezing temperatures. However, using cell phone forensics in conjunction with radar analysis, the location of the survivors was ascertained via cell phone within eight minutes and the three individuals were rescued in just 48 minutes.
Missing aircraft, as well as lost and stranded hikers, snowmobilers, skiers and boaters, have been found with the help of cell phone data.
“It’s not just where the phone last was, but we can get a picture of a stream of events over time,” said Major Justin Ogden, who built and improved the software the team uses to establish a “most likely area” for the search and rescue personnel.
“While most cellular carriers will provide a latitude and longitude, colloquially known as a ‘ping,’ the carriers don’t provide any further analysis or services past that,” said Major Jerad Hoff, an analyst on the team. “Justin Ogden has processed and analyzed so many cases and with that unparalleled experience comes a trend analysis that leads him to sorting the good data from the bad faster than anyone else can.”
Before 2009, the AFRCC assigned about 2,000 missions a year to CAP, with searches for activated aircraft emergency locator transmitters dominating. In February 2009, the satellite system that monitored the old style 121.5-megahertz emergency beacons was turned off, and the annual mission count was reduced by at least half.
Since then, the cell phone team has contributed to a dramatic rise in the number of saved lives credited to CAP by the AFRCC.
“We’re saving more lives and doing more missions in a cost-effective manner,” Desmarais said.
In fiscal 2018, CAP was credited with a record of 155 lives saved in a single year. Most of those saves — 147 or 95% — occurred with the support of the cell phone team.
The team conducted 373 missions during the fiscal year. CAP’s search and rescue total team effort, which also included the radar analysis team and state and locally based ground teams, carried out 1,044 missions overall.
In 2019, that number stood at 798 search and rescue missions.
Ogden and Col. Brian Ready have been honored on numerous occasions for their efforts, most notably with the 2014 1st Air Force (AFNORTH) Commander’s Award, which was presented to both men in August 2015, and the 2010 National Aeronautic Association Public Benefit Flying Award in the Distinguished Volunteer category, which was presented to Ogden.
Last year, the four fully-qualified cell phone forensics analysts on the team — Ogden, Ready, Hoff and Major John Schofield — were recognized by the Arizona Wing with an Exceptional Service Award. The team has since added Lt. Col. Vic LaSala as an analyst trainee and Capt. Margot Myers as public information officer.
Civil Air Patrol, the longtime all-volunteer U.S. Air Force auxiliary, operates a fleet of 560 aircraft, performs about 90% of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and is credited by the AFRCC with saving an average of 82 lives annually. CAP’s 66,000 members also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. In addition, CAP plays a leading role in aerospace/STEM education, and its members serve as mentors to over 28,000 young people participating in CAP’s Cadet Programs.