Tag: rescue

Tracking the Haiti rescue flights and radio traffic online

[/caption] For those who want to get some really specific details of what is going on in Haiti, you can turn to some web interfaces to some rather old school technology. Firstly, the Military Communications Bloggers are doing an amazing job tracking all the rescue traffic on the radios going in and out of Haiti.  MilComm bloggers often transcribe the radio traffic they hear, and as it is straight ‘from the horse’s mouth’ it’s also usually about 30-60 minutes ahead of the television reports.  For example, you can read this traffic from a monitoring station in Charleston South Carolina.  Rescue planes are on the ground, recovering the wounded, and the lights are on at the airport.

  • 1940Z 9007.0 CANFORCE 2343 p/p via TRENTON MILITARY to WING OPS. WING OPS passes 1345Z overhead damage assessment of Port-au-Prince. E/O imagery shows no structural damage to airfield or terminal. Electrical equipment not working. E/O imagery shows little to no damage to port facility. WING OPS estimates 10 aircraft en route with the same ETA. CANFORCE 2343 gets WX for Port-au-Prince, Homestead, Providenciales Airport, and Jags McCartney IAP
  • 2024Z 9007.0 CANFORCE 2343 p/p via TRENTON MILITARY to 613-XXX-XXXX for SITREP regarding deployment last night of 2 CH-146s from 430 Squadron at Cold Lake to Haiti. First 2 are yellow and follow on is green. Ground party needs SITREP for fuel and force protection needs
  • 2223Z 7527.0 CG 1501 (HC-130, CGAS Clearwater) p/p to D7 Miami Ops. Still on deck Port-au-Prince with 40+ PAX on board and still loading. They are bringing PAX in vans at 10-20 at a time. They also report 2 USAF C-130s on deck and a Lynden Air Cargo C-130. Runway lights are working
There are also some Ham Radio operators working Haiti, relaying communications between families in the US and in Haiti.  You can also listen to streaming radio stations from Haiti (though most are offline right now).  Some of the Ham Radio is being rebroadcast via Teamtalk online streams and other streaming media solutions. Flight tracking websites can show you the status of all aircraft inbound for Port Au Prince (MTPP) but this is based on the flight plans filed in the US, not necessarily the actual number of planes coming in from various countries. Haiti Internet Radio has a list of stations broadcasting, many of which are on backup connections and still on the air despite all that has happened. Finally, there are several sites that track “Where Are the Carriers“–daily updates of the location of our country’s aircraft carriers. UPDATE:  Google has published some interesting satellite photos of the destruction using the Geoeye/Google satellite.]]>