2020 SAR Controllers Workshop

NOAA/SARSAT along with USCG Office of Search and Rescue hosted the Search and Rescue (SAR) Controllers Workshop at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP) in College Park, Maryland USA, from March 9 – 13, 2020. The workshop was attended by SAR professionals from the US Air Force and US Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centers (RCCs), as well as SAR Points of Contacts (SPOCs) from other countries that are supported by the US Mission Control Center (USMCC). The SPOC attendees included Canada, Curacao, Dominican Republic, and the Corporación Centroamericana de Servicios de Navegación Aérea (COCESNA). This critical annual workshop provides an opportunity for the SARSAT US Mission Control Center to educate SAR data users on current SARSAT alert response procedures, USMCC policies, distress beacon issues, database management (RGDB, IHDB, IBRD), and other related SARSAT System topics with an emphasis on lessons learned from real-world SAR cases.

The US SARSAT Program (USCG, USAF, NOAA, and NASA) will use the feedback from this workshop to determine any need for policy or system changes or enhancements. In addition, the lessons learned from this workshop will be used to shape future workshops.