Several years ago, in a blog long forgotten, I wrote a piece titled something like this one. It was inspired by the search for Fossett, and in particular, the use of volunteers to look through aerial photography and satellite  imagery via the Internet.

It started me thinking about aerial search – often seen and portrayed as this magic bullet  when it comes to missing person search [Understandable when you need to justify the expense!] But aerial search, like ALL search resources, is capable of missing.

For all the high-tech equipment onboard, including the FLIR (forward looking infra-red), it ultimately relies upon a human watching and interpreting the image on the screen.  Humans are fallible.  The image might be visible for a fraction of a second; if the operator is busy at that second, or tired, or for any other reason distracted at that exact point, the misper could be missed.

It happens.

However, unlike foot search, aerial searches tend to be recorded. This offers a second chance to find the misper [a very cost effective chance at that!]

My thought then was how many aerial searches are followed immediately by  a review of the “tapes” of the search?

If not done in-house, it would be possible to create a team of volunteers around the country, trained in reviewing such mission videos. After the aerial search the video could be spliced into sections, made available over the internet and volunteers could review the video [in slow motion!] and possibly pick up on mispers missed during the search.

Foot search teams still out on the ground could then be directed to check these potential hits.

It was just a thought then, and remains just a thought. For now anyway.