Boats won't reach Abby Sunderland for almost two days

[Liberal_in_LA]

Can't they reach her sooner by helicopter or something?

-----------------
Boats won't reach Abby Sunderland for almost two days, but brother is optimistic
June 10, 2010 | 1:49 pm

Two boats are headed toward Abby Sunderland's vessel but won't be there for another 40 to 48 hours, said her brother Zac Sunderland, speaking briefly to reporters from the doorway of the family's Thousand Oaks house. At first light, the Australian Coast Guard also intends to fly over the area, he said.

The family remains optimistic that the 16-year-old is still alive because a beacon triggered when the boat sinks has not been set off.

Abby Sunderland sailed into a storm Thursday in the Southern Indian Ocean and lost contact with her family. She apparently activated emergency beacon locating devices on Thursday after losing contact over satellite phone with her family.

Zac Sunderland said his sister had three emergency beacons. Two are on the boat and one is on her life vest. Two of the beacons have been manually set off.

The third is a deep-water automatic beacon that is triggered by salt water and goes off when the boat has reached a depth of about 15 feet. That beacon has not gone off. The boat is built with water-tight compartments and his sister could be huddled safely in one of those, even if the vessel has capsized, Zac Sunderland said.

"It's weird not being able to help and being at a distance," Zac Sunderland said.

The family was huddled inside the house in a room equipped with a navigation station and computers. His parents were on the phone with the Coast Guard. Zac Sunderland was making calls to Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa, to start an emergency rescue effort from there. Zac Sunderland said he has a personal relationship with people there because he stopped there during his solo sail around the world when he was 17.

Two ships are about 400 miles – and two days – away from her location.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/abby-sunderland-rescue.html

[cbayer]

1. She's on a good boat and has everything she might need to survive for a long period,

including the fortitude.

We last heard that they are going to try a flyover. They won't be able to physically reach her, but they quite possibly can establish some radio communication.

That would be a great relief to her family.

She has a lot of people pulling for her right now.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Xithras]

5. Guiness quit posting these years ago.

They said it was too dangerous for the kids, and stopped recording child records. Still, the kids KNOW what the records are, and want to beat them anyway.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. Remember the little girl who set out to break a flight record with her dad?

The one who crashed and died? Was that about 10 years ago? I'll always remember the quote. "I want to fly til I die".

[ddeclue]

3. No not really. Helicopters have a rather limited range and the Ocean is rather large.

If you are gonna do something like this it has very real risks.

[hayu_lol]

18 is the minimum age for records to be recognized...

that was an effort to curb younger and younger people to make the attempts. Sort of silly not to recognize that a record was set however. The world knows when they do this successfully.

If a flyover can spot her, then the exact course for the rescue ships can be sent to them. If she is in the raft however, that would be more difficult to spot(smaller). Hopefully, she is still with the boat.

[slampoet]

12. planes can't hover and rescue and copters only go about 400 miles on tank, like most cars.

[Xithras]

4. She's too far out for helicopters.

Even a Blackhawk with auxiliary tanks can only pull about 800 miles in a trip (400 miles out and back). More conventional S&R helicopters have much shorter ranges than that.

She's currently almost 2,000 miles from the nearest landmass. By my estimate, she's also at least 1,000 miles from Diego Garcia, the closest U.S. airbase.

The only way to get a helicopter to her is by using a LOT of tankers for a LOT of in flight refuels. That isn't likely to happen unless there is confirmation that she's alive, and that the need for her rescue is imminent (if the boat is stable, she can sit there for two days and wait for one of the rescue ships). That, of course, assumes that the helicopters and tankers are even available right now.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. wow. I had no idea. Hope she's ok.

[ddeclue]

10. Technically there are refuelable helos but they probably just aren't near by

and the longest unrefueled range is held by the CH53 Sea Stallions which I believe can do nearly 1000 nm round trip.

[Xithras]

11. I forgot about the CH53's, but even they couldn't make that flight.

1000nm round trip is about half of what they would need, assuming that there are even CH53's at Diego ready to go.

The military wouldn't go to the expense of an inflight refuel for her unless we knew she were alive, and that she was about to sink. They would never do it blind.

[Duer 157099]

8. This part worries me: 2 beacons have been set off, one is on her life vest

Zac Sunderland said his sister had three emergency beacons. Two are on the boat and one is on her life vest. Two of the beacons have been manually set off.

The third is a deep-water automatic beacon that is triggered by salt water and goes off when the boat has reached a depth of about 15 feet. That beacon has not gone off. The boat is built with water-tight compartments and his sister could be huddled safely in one of those, even if the vessel has capsized, Zac Sunderland said.

[Suich]

14. Oh, crap. I just realized that's Zac Sunderland's sister.

I followed him when he sailed around the world. There are some pics of them both on his blog.

http://blog.zacsunderland.com/

[cbayer]

15. Actually, that's good news. That means she set them off herself and the boat has

not sunk (or the third would have gone off).

[Duer 157099]

16. But it makes me think she could be in the water

That's the scary part

[cbayer]

18. She has a self inflating lifeboat. That is apparently where one of the EPIRB's was

located, so I am remaining optimistic. She may be out there a few days, but I think that if she were able to set off her EPIRB's, she might very well be ok.

[Spike89]

9. Sounds as if she's hundreds of miles offshore

Helicopters are notoriously short-range. Possibly if they have a plane flyover and get exact coordinates it might be possible, but not really that likely.

[mwb970]

13. More info here...

http://soloround.blogspot.com/

[canetoad]

17. Airbus leaving Western Australia this morning to search

"We’ve actually chartered a Qantas airbus, so that’s a Qantas without the normal passengers obviously, to depart Perth around 8am eastern time,’’ Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Carly Lusk told Radio 3AW today.

"We’ve got Qantas crews on there, as well as 11 trained air observers from the West Australian fire and emergency services, and two Fremantle water police officers.’
http://www.theage.com.au/world/search-on-for-teen-sailor-after-distress-signals-released-20100611-y0tq.html?autostart=1

Perth is around 3 hours behind Melbourne, so that plane will be leaving pretty shortly.

Ms Lusk said it would take the aircraft about four hours to reach the search area, located approximately 3200km west/south-west of Perth.

I really hope they have sucess in finding her alive quickly. Her father, who is Aussie btw, made this comment:
‘‘in God’s hands’’ and ‘‘there are a lot of people praying for her’’. I'd much rather trust the trained personnel doing the searching.