Right Hand Seat

Having a SARTIME and cancelling it before it expires is a subject that all VFR pilots should be familiar with. So what is a SARTIME?

According to Airservices Australia, “SARTIME is an abbreviation for ‘time search action required’. A SARTIME is the time nominated by a pilot for the initiation of search and rescue (SAR) Action.”

So in broad terms a SARTIME is a time that a pilot nominates and unless cancelled with air traffic services (ATS) there will be an initial check by ATS on the status of the aircraft, after which, if there’s no response, the task of trying to locate the ‘lost’ aircraft is turned over to AMSA (the Australian Maritime Safety Authority). A search may then result.

Some 120,000 SARTIME flight notifications are lodged each year, the avsafety seminar was told. Of these 10 per cent or 12,000 require follow-up com checks when SARTIMEs have not been cancelled by the due time. A further 1.5 per cent or 1,500-1,800 get elevated to the declaration of a phase alert and in some cases a search conducted by AMSA.

Australia is a big country and for those that fly over it outside of controlled airspace can have the confidence, unlike some countries, that should they go missing someone will come looking for them, if they have lodged a SARTIME.

Should they go missing someone will come looking for them.

So how does one lodge a SARTIME? Usually online in the form of a basic flightplan through the National Aeronautical Information Processing System (NAIPS) that tells Airservices the intended route that a pilot plans to take and a nominated SARTIME. It can be a wise move to note on your copy of the plan the SARTIME in both local time as well as UTC/Z. More than one pilot has had a SARTIME expire thinking that the expiry time was later than actual – 5pm/0700z is not a 7pm expiry time!

There are various ways to remind yourself of the SARTIME, like using a red pen to highlight the Sartime on your copy of the flightplan. Another is setting a mobile phone alarm to ring five minutes before the expiry time, or a sticker on the instrument panel or swapping your wrist watch to your other arm. Or you put a tag on the aircraft keys or even your car key, or a reminder tag attached to a your flightbag handle or headset bag.

Airservices’ preferred method of cancelling a SARTIME is online via NAIPS, or you can call Airservices’ CENSAR 1800 phone number. A tip here is to have the number already in your mobile phone’s contacts.

CENSAR will want to know three things: the callsign, the location that you planed as your destination and the advised SARTIME. All this is to try and ensure that the person calling to cancel is in fact that aircraft’s pilot.

In part this ask came about as a result of a crash in the NT where a person on the ground saw the Baron fly overhead and advised Airservices by phone that the aircraft had arrived. But it crashed in the circuit pattern unknown for some time to those on the Ground.

Remember, with an overdue SARTIME cancellation a search may be mounted to try and find the missing aircraft. That involves taxpayer-funded aircraft and personnel looking for you. This can endanger the crew of those aircraft, as more than one search aircraft has crashed during search Flights.

If flying in a remote area mobile phone coverage may be poor or nonexistent. In this situation a call to CENSAR while in the circuit area may be one way to cancel the SARTIME even if this is not usually the norm for a VFR flight. If on the ground another method could be to contact another aircraft flying in the area and ask for an airborne relay to cancel that SARTIME. If approaching a SARTIME expiry while still in the air best to contact Centre and advise a new SARTIME. For example, “Brisbane Centre, Flight Watch. Require SARTIME extension.”

Further tips. Ensure that the correct phone number for the pilot is on that submitted SARTIME flightplan form, just in case Airservices or AMSA needs to call you.

Get into the habit of cancelling the SARTIME before it expires. Allow adequate time between the estimated destination arrival time and the nominated SARTIME. A good time to phone CENSAR is at shutdown before you exit the aircraft. Think mixture, master, mags, cancel SARTIME.

And avsafety seminars are great events to attend. Pilots can learn much from them and ask questions.

Lodging a SARTIME is great insurance for all pilots on away-frombase flights. It is good to know that someone will come looking for you, your passengers and the aircraft if in the event that the unthinkable occurs.

Contact Dave by email: [email protected]