(C) Common Dreams
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Hoax Mayday Calls To The Coast Guard [1]
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Date: 2023-11
More likely, the caller stayed by his TV set ashore as the call set in motion a Coast Guard response that engaged two boat crews and seven aircraft, including both helicopters and fixed-wing planes, all working a computer-generated search pattern offshore with the aid of several Good Samaritan vessels that happened to be in the area. Ashore, some 200 emergency first responders from four New York and New Jersey agencies set up mass casualty reception areas in Newark, New Jersey, and at Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook. By nightly news time, the fictitious vessel Blind Date had generated national and even international coverage, which, unfortunately, seems to be a common motivation behind hoax mayday broadcasts, according to Captain Peter Martin, chief of the Office of Search and Rescue at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"There are some sick people out there who just want to watch us put on a show for them," Martin explains. "They know that if they push that transmit button, there's going to be a helicopter in the air and a boat with flashing blue lights out there, and they'll sit back and be entertained at public expense.
"The pyromaniac calls 911 because he wants to see the fire trucks roll. But if you call 911, chances are they're going to know who you are, and where you're calling from, whereas you have anonymity on a VHF broadcast, and that's why hoax maydays are such a vexing problem for us. These people can fire and forget, and we can't always trace the call back to them unless there's a witness who blows them in."
For making false distress calls to the Coast Guard as in the Blind Date case, still unsolved at press time, the perpetrator risks up to six years in prison and a criminal fine of up to $250,000 plus a $5,000 civil fine. Under federal law, convicted hoax callers are liable for expenses the Coast Guard incurs during a search. In one 2009 Florida case, it cost the perpetrator $906,036.94. Yet nationwide, the Coast Guard handles, on average, 18 intentional false distress calls annually, and another 121 suspected hoax maydays, and nearly all are made over VHF radio.
"Some people think the term 'mayday' sounds funny, but when we hear the word 'mayday,' it triggers a very definite response," Martin goes on. "For us, this is an internationally recognized distress signal and how we respond to it is not negotiable. We have to treat every distress call as legitimate, until it's proven otherwise."
For Real, Or Really A Hoax?
On average, according to records kept over the past decade, the Coast Guard handles 20,000 calls for assistance annually and logs them in four categories: Actual Alerts, False Alerts, Suspected Hoax, and Confirmed Hoax. Although records show an encouraging downward trend in overall calls, suspected and confirmed hoaxes have trended more or less upward, increasing from 76 in 2006 to 161 in 2011. (At press time, records for 2012 were not yet available, but year-to-date numbers appeared consistent with that trend.)
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[1] Url:
https://www.boatus.com/expert-advice/expert-advice-archive/2012/december/hoax-mayday-calls-to-the-coast-guard
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