Circular Letter
MSC/Circ.1078

GUIDELINES TO ADMINISTRATIONS ON REPORTING FALSE ALERTS

(adopted on 5 June 2003)

 

1. The Sub-Committee on Radio Communications and Search and Rescue (COMSAR), at its seventh session, (13 to 17 January 2003) developed Guidelines to Administrations on reporting false alerts, given in the annex.

 

2. The Maritime Safety Committee, at its seventy-seventh session (28 May to 6 June 2003), with a view to ensuring that the problem of false alerts is handled properly, agreed the annexed Guidelines the purpose of which is to advise Administrations how to collect information and to use the standardized forms when reporting false alerts.

 

3. Member Governments are invited to bring these Guidelines to the attention of all parties concerned.

 

 

ANNEX.

GUIDELINES TO ADMINISTRATIONS ON REPORTING FALSE ALERTS

 

1. Background

 

1.1 Ships to which the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974, as amended applies were permitted to install radio equipment in the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) from 1 February 1992.

 

1.2 SOLAS ships constructed on or after 1 February 1995 were required to carry GMDSS radio equipment. All SOLAS ships were required to carry GMDSS radio equipment from 1 February 1999.

 

1.3 Together with the implementation of GMDSS radio equipment false distress alerts have become a major problem to the efficient operation of search and rescue services, thus having potentially serious effects on real distress situations and the safety of life at sea.

 

1.4 False alerts in the IAMSAR Manual are defined as: "Any alert received by the SAR system indicating an actual or potential distress situation, when no such situation actually exists".

 

1.5 Due to a rising problem it was decided to start collection of data on the causes for false alerts.

 

1.6 Statistics from (M)RCCs show that the percentage of false alerts are approximately 95-100% of the total alerts received, mainly caused by lack of knowledge of the relevant conventions, codes and regulations.

 

1.7 Over the next years to come, new equipment will be developed, along with a huge group of new GMDSS users, as the non-SOLAS and pleasure craft fleet starts to implement the GMDSS. Based on experience gained throughout the implementation period of the GMDSS, one must therefore still expect false alerts and "interference" within the system, which degrades the efficiency of the GMDSS.

 

1.8 The monitoring of the overall efficiency and possible anomalies is therefore of vital importance.

 

2. Procedures on how to collect information on false alerts

 

2.1 The whole chain of actions related to false alerts starts upon reception of the alert at the (M)RCC. The operational procedures for handling an alert at the (M)RCC is laid down in MSC/Circ.959 - "Interim procedures for RCCs on receipt of distress alerts". If the alert is proved to be false, the next step should be to seek as much information as possible on what caused the activation of the distress alert, and this should be done as soon as possible, while the GMDSS operator onboard have a fresh memory about what happened.

 

2.2 The different alerting systems within the GMDSS have different capabilities. Therefore there have been developed different questionnaires for each alerting system containing questions sufficient for the use in a GMDSS-SMR programme. See COMSAR/Circ.29 "Guidance for the voluntary use of the standardized questionnaires and formats for reporting false alerts in collecting data on false alerts."

 

2.3 The questionnaires are prepared for Inmarsat-C and in "telex-mode" and therefore the layout look complicated. If e-mail or other equivalent communication facilities are available on board, such systems could be used, thus providing the ship with a more user-friendly layout. If such facilities are available on board the ship, the (M)RCC may use the questionnaire as a guideline when using voice communications for investigation.

 

2.4 One must also bear in mind a possible increase in workload at the (M)RCCs when investigating false alerts. However, this is necessary in the endeavour of reducing the number of false alerts. Use of modern forms of communications and preformatted messages will ease the burden for the (M)RCCs.

 

3. How to record information

 

3.1 The record should give information on the reason why the false alert was transmitted, with references to the questionnaires and, if necessary, to other relevant information sources of interest.

 

3.2 The monitoring of false alerts consist in general of two parts:

 

.1 the monitoring of alerting systems performance and anomalies. This may be performed by system operator or special interests or an overall System Monitoring and Reporting Programme; and

 

.2 the monitoring of operational false alerts and determine cause of activation. This may be performed by Administrations in co-operations with authorized Agencies.

 

3.3 Operational false alerts may have a variety of origins and causes. In general these are divided into categories such as:

 

.1 "mishandling";

 

.2 "human error";

 

.3 "technical";

 

.4 "mounting failure"; or

 

.5 "environmental conditions".

 

Under these categories it is defined "types" of causes related to each of the different alerting systems capabilities. COMSAR/Circ.29 contains examples of "types" of causes and different categories.

 

3.4 Administrations should take into account the above mention system to catalogue the causes, and to endeavour establishment of paper or electronic recording systems, which enable systemised lessons learned to be derived.

 

4. Co-operation between agencies

 

4.1 The investigation of false alerts should not only focus on causes for activation, but also look for other anomalies which might decrease the ships safety, such as:

 

.1 improper coding of the alerting systems;

 

.2 wrong or no position given in the distress alert;

 

.3 improper and/or multiple transmissions of DSC relay Alert;

 

.4 identity not found in database or database not available; or

 

.5 other anomalies which might cause confusion among SAR Authorities about which ship was in distress and its position.

 

4.2 A co-operation between all involved agencies should be established; due to the fact that a false distress alert may involve more Agencies than if the distress alert was real. It is important that the Agencies involved have a common understanding of the importance of such investigation.

 

4.3 The Agencies or bodies involved upon a false distress alert may be:

 

.1 if received trough VHF-, MF-, HF-DSC:

 

the ship, the coast radio station receiving the distress alert, the associated (M)RCC, the licensing authority and the maritime authorities;

 

.2 if received through the Inmarsat system:

 

the ship, the land earth station, associated (M)RCC, register countries licensing bureau, the maritime authorities and the Inmarsat organization; and

 

.3 if received through COSPAS-SARSAT:

 

the ship, the Mission Control Centres (MCCs), one or more (M)RCCs, registered country's licensing bureau, the maritime authorities and the COSPAS-SARSAT organization.

 

5. How to derive lessons learned

 

5.1 Determination of the cause of false alerts is totally dependent on the feedback and information received from national (M)RCCs and SPOCs. National Administrations should therefore encourage their (M)RCCs and SPOCs to provide timely information, which describes the cause and disposition for activations of each false distress alert. One should also look for both specific causeslihd general trends.

 

5.2 An example of this is the investigation conducted by COSPAS-SARSAT (COMSAR 5/7) during 1998 on the number of false alerts produced by specific type approved 406 MHz EPIRB models in use in the Spanish area. The information collected related specifically to the beacon false alert rate, and it was discovered that of the 155 false alerts from a population of 4990 registered 406 MHz EPIRBs, the beacon false alert rate was significantly higher for some beacon models than others.

 

5.3 Further investigations against manufacturers and users would then establish what exactly causes these activations, and appropriate measures may be taken to solve the problem.

 

6. Evaluation of, and statistics on false alerts

 

6.1 The false alert rate can be calculated in three ways, as a function of the beacon population, as a function of total alerts transmitted to SAR authorities and as a function of specific alerting device models. This can be calculated as described below.

 

.1 False alert rate as a function of population:

 

The false alert rate as function of the total beacon population can be viewed as a method of tracking false alerts from a System perspective. The rate could be calculated by dividing the number of false alerts and undetermined alerts occurring worldwide with the reporting Administration country code(s), by the estimated total of ship installations of the specific alerting device with the reporting Administrations country code(s).

 

 

.2 False alert rate as a function of the total number of alerts

 

The false alert rate calculated as a function of the total number of alerts can be viewed as representing the SAR response perspective and is the traditional view of false alert rate. This rate should be calculated by dividing the number of false