LA PLATA CANYON – Hovering over the mouth of La Plata Canyon, Brandon Laird explains through his headset that he will try to “act like a carrier” and position the helicopter in a location that will provide the most cell coverage.
Laird, the chief pilot of Durango-based Colorado Highland Helicopters, manipulates the controls of the AS350 helicopter, brings it up to about 10,300 feet and enters the canyon. The aircraft makes sharp turns over the many finger ridges that protrude from the peaks that compose the canyon walls.
The helicopter should be positioned where a carrier might put a cell tower because the Lifeseeker technology on board, in essence, turns it into a miniature cell tower.
Highland Helicopters Search and Rescue Program Coordinator Dr. Tim Durkin, an emergency and sports medicine doctor, is seated next to Laird watching a tablet with a map of the terrain closely.
Below the helicopter, a hiker is pretending to be lost somewhere in the nearly 18 square miles of La Plata Canyon.
A circle appears on Durkin’s map almost as soon as the aircraft enters the canyon. But then, the line on the map showing the helicopter’s path began to flicker in and out.
The system picked up a second ping on the hiker’s phone, narrowing the search area again before Laird pointed the helicopter back toward the airport. Durkin later discovered that an unsecured cable on the device was to blame for the inconsistent performance.
When operating normally, Lifeseeker uses cellular radio communication to locate cellphones – or even one specific device – across large areas and pinpoint a device’s location. According to CENTUM, the company that created the device, Lifeseeker can pinpoint a device within about 100 feet.
But even with a faulty cable, the Lifeseeker was able to narrow the search area from about 18 square miles to one-tenth of a square mile. The hiker later reported that the helicopter circled right over her.
“It could be a game-changer, that's for sure,” said La Plata County Search and Rescue President Ron Corkish.
Corkish has observed the Lifeseeker in action and said he was “very impressed” with the results.
But Durkin and Laird say they are somewhat frustrated by the fact that the business’ search and rescue services – which includes technology that few outfitters, if any, have access to in the United States – is infrequently used.
“It would be great to see some of this get used a little more,” Durkin said.
RECCO search capabilities, which for passive reflectors that are commonly sewn into clothing and equipment, were added in April 2022 and has been used once since then. The company has had Lifeseeker since October 2023.
The Lifeseeker technology is compact and relatively simple to deploy – it can be connected to a helicopter in fewer than five minutes. It sits in a plastic suitcase and takes up two seats in the back of the helicopter, with wires that connect to antennae on the outside of the aircraft.
A local Wi-Fi network inside the aircraft created by the system allows the user to load a console onto a tablet or laptop, where they can track the helicopter on a map and spot a cellphone, usually within a matter of minutes.
In its capacity as a mobile miniature cell tower, the Lifeseeker can geolocate phones within a range of up to 20 miles, depending on the terrain, and can send messages to those devices even when they do not have carrier-provided cell reception. It can also track and communicate with one individual device.
Although a search subject’s phone does not need cell reception to be found by Lifeseeker, it cannot be out of battery or in airplane mode.
“If you have line of site on their phone, even if there’s a tree or a rock or whatever, as long as you’re over one basin, it’s going to pick it up,” Durkin said.
Highland Helicopters is in a business partnership with Lifeseeker creator CENTUM, a Spain-based company. The device, which is estimated to cost around $200,000, is on loan to the Durango-based company as CENTUM pursues full approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which could come as soon as the end of this year.
Currently, Durkin says he thinks Highland Helicopters has the only Lifeseeker in the U.S. Previous test programs have brought the technology to Wyoming and Montana.
Although the technology is not common in North America, search and rescue organizations across Europe have used it for several years and CENTUM attributes over 200 saved lives to Lifeseeker.
The way Durkin and Laird see it, Colorado Highland Helicopters is underutilized.
They point to a 2022 study done at the direction of lawmakers which concluded that “Helicopters are force multipliers and consideration should be given to strategically increasing their use to improve (Backcountry Search and Rescue) incident response efficiency and effectiveness.”
Lifeseeker was specifically named as one of two helicopter-mounted technologies – the other being RECCO – in which the state should invest.
“Candidly, we’ve invested weeks of time and thousands of dollars to bring these capabilities to the region,” Durkin said. “I think Brandon and I both have been frustrated that there hasn’t been more engagement from some of the teams (SAR) in the region.”
Part of the issues might be the complex, uncertain and ever-changing nature of SAR funding in Colorado.
SAR programs in Colorado operate through the county sheriffs’ offices, which generally dispatch SAR to volunteer organization such as La Plata County Search and Rescue. Backcountry search and rescue responsibilities are an unfunded mandate statutorily thrust upon sheriffs’ offices, according the Colorado Search and Rescue Association.
Some SAR operations are eligible for reimbursement through the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue fund, maintained by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Given the limited, and at times unknown, funding, Corkish said the decision to deploy one air resource or another – if at all – comes down to both what is appropriate and necessary.
Flight For Life, the critical care transport program operated by CommonSpirit which has a helicopter based in Durango, bills a transported patient’s insurance for its services and provides search time to rescuers at no charge, according to a CommonSpirit spokesperson.
LPCSAR also has access to a helicopter through one of its members, Corkish said.
However, in both cases, those searchers do not benefit from the searching capabilities of Lifeseeker.
The flip side? Even at a discounted SAR rate, Highland Helicopters still charges $1,800 per hour that the engine is running.
“We just need some gas money to go do this,” Durkin said.
If the SAR organization hires a private operator and does not receive reimbursement from the state, it’s the taxpayers that are left holding the bill – and that is a concern, Corkish said.
“I haven’t seen any sheriff that has resisted, if we’ve exhausted our roster of free resources and it is a high (urgency situation), then of course they’re going to shell out the dollars to have the mission done,” Corkish said.
Although La Plata County SAR’s annual budget fluctuates depending on the needs in any given year, the county has just $10,000 earmarked in the Sheriff’s Office’s budget for SAR. Around 70% of the organization’s funding comes from donations, Corkish said.
The state has a $26 million Firehawk helicopter, as well as several other aircraft that can be used for search and rescue. But those aircrafts are sometimes busy with other priorities, Durkin said, and may rarely be the right tool for the job.
Durkin would like to see the state direct modest funding toward a program to keep Lifeseeker operating in the area.
There is $2.5 million in new funding for SAR efforts statewide that is anticipated to be available this year, thanks to 2021 legislation that created the Keep Colorado Wild Pass.
Corkish said he has only hearsay evidence of how much of that funding La Plata County could receive.
“If this is brand-new money, and it's a sizable amount, perhaps that is a source that we could start utilizing,” Corkish said, with respect to private helicopter operators.
Funding could also be used to start a regional program in which SAR teams would pool resources to purchase the technology themselves.
Laird wonders why SAR teams would not use the system that is already in place.
“We’re uniquely positioned, though, in that the other models are massive upfront expenses for putting a program in place, as opposed to a small investment for as-needed or small-volume helicopter support that's already here,” Laird said.
It can be difficult to stay abreast of change in funding and technology development related to search and rescue, Corkish indicated.
But at the end of the day, the question comes down to whether something is the right tool for the job.
“We like Lifeseeker, we think it has a place,” he said. “… We anticipate that we’ll have money that we could engage and get a helicopter up without a burden to the county. But again, it has to be the right mission.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
