>Press Releases Home > Publications and press releases > Press Releases Marine Department Hosts Cospas-Sarsat Conference More than 110 search and rescue experts from over 30 countries and organizations around the world attended the 15th session of the Cospas-Sarsat Joint Committee, which started in Hong Kong today (June 13). The six-day meeting was hosted by the Marine Department and will run until June 20. The delegates will discuss enhancement of the Cospas-Sarsat system and improvements to saving lives in air, sea and land emergency situations. Cospas-Sarsat is an international, humanitarian satellite-based search and rescue system, which automatically detects and locates transmissions from emergency beacons carried by ships, aircraft, or vehicles. Both the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recognize the system. The head of the Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC), Senior Marine Officer Mr K W Chan, explained how the system worked: "All ships and aircraft of international trade are required to carry at least one radio beacon that can be activated automatically or manually to transmit a dedicated radio distress signal. "When activated, the signal will be picked up by Cospas-Sarsat satellites and then relayed to Local User Terminals (LUTs) which are ground receiving stations. The distress information can be exchanged among the global network of LUTs, and it will be passed on to an responsible agency to coordinate an SAR operation." He added: "There are 38 LUTs in different parts of the world, and two of them are located in Hong Kong, whose MRCC takes charge of search and rescue (SAR) operations in both local regional waters and the international waters of the South China Sea. In fact, the MRCC covers vast areas of very busy shipping routes." The Hong Kong MRCC deals with many different types of marine incidents. Last year, the centre handled 278 incidents and 60 of them developed into real SAR cases that required immediate actions. Through concerted efforts of various SAR agencies, 207 persons were saved. In 1992, a Mission Control Centre (MCC) was set up in Hong Kong to become part of the Cospas-Sarsat system. This MCC has been integrated with the Hong Kong MRCC and housed in the same premises to provide more efficient SAR efforts. The expertise and efficiency of the Hong Kong MRCC is well recognized globally. It is one of the eight maritime experts invited to participate in an IMO/ICAO joint working group to study ways to harmonise aeronautical and maritime SAR operations. Operational use of Cospas-Sarsat system by SAR agencies started with the crash of a light aircraft in Canada in 1982, in which three people were rescued. Since then, the system has helped save over 11,300 lives in about 4,000 SAR cases around the world (as of May 2000). Linguistically, "Cospas-Sarsat" has its origin from the Russian term "Cosmicheskaya Sistyema Poiska Avariynich Sudov", which stands for "Search And Rescue Satellite". At present, there are 35 countries and organizations associated with this system. These include the four Parties to the Cospas-Sarsat International Programme Agreement, namely Canada, France, Russia and the USA, as well as 20 Ground Segment Providers, nine User States and two Participating Organizations. The Head of the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat, Mr Daniel Levesque, said their Joint Committee meets annually for experts from different countries to exchange views on the enhancements of the system. "This is the first time that the meeting is held in Hong Kong, and I am glad that the Hong Kong Government has generously agreed to host it," Mr Levesque said. Wednesday, June 13, 2001
		2009 | Important notices | Privacy Policy Last revision date : 11 November 2011