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Thursday, July 02, 2009
UPDATED: Sheriff Says Error Fixed in Santa Fe Area 911 System
By Barry Massey
Associated Press
SANTA FE — Cell phone tower programming errors misrouted 911 calls from a lost hiker killed in a rescue helicopter crash last month, but the problem has been corrected, authorities said Thursday.
Despite the 911 system glitch, there was no significant delay in a search and rescue mission, according to Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano.
The hiker's initial calls went to a non-emergency line. But within a few minutes, he said, the hiker was transferred to a state police dispatcher.
The hiker, Megumi Yamamoto of Tokyo, died when a State Police helicopter crashed shortly after picking her up in the mountains near Santa Fe. The helicopter pilot was killed but another crew member survived. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
Yamamoto was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She became lost after getting separated from her boyfriend during a hike on a camping trip.
The 911 calls from Yamamoto's cell phone went to a non-emergency, administrative line in the Santa Fe County Emergency Communications Center. Because her calls failed to go to the 911 emergency dispatch line, authorities could not track her location. Yamamoto was told to call 911 again in hopes of being able to determine her whereabouts. When that failed to work, she was transferred to a state police emergency dispatcher and a rescue mission was started.
Solano said the transfer to the state police dispatcher happened about six minutes after Yamamoto's first 911 call.
Had the 911 system worked properly, her cell phone call should have allowed searchers to narrow her position to a one- or two-square-mile area, according to Solano. Instead, the State Police helicopter had to look for her based on limited information she could supply, including whether she could hear or see the helicopter as it circled in the mountains.
Yamamoto was picked up by the helicopter about 4 1/2 hours after her first 911 call, according to records of telephone and radio calls released by authorities. The sheriff said that finding her within five hours was "really good for a search and rescue mission" in the mountains.
An investigation of the misrouted 911 calls found errors in programming on two cell phone towers near Santa Fe and in neighboring San Miguel County, according to Solano. Equipment on the towers is supposed to send 911 calls to the nearest emergency dispatch center, but programming wrongly switched calls to an administrative phone number at the Santa Fe communications center. The problem has been fixed and the system has been tested to ensure calls go to the correct telephone line, he said.
The surviving crew member has told investigators that clouds from an approaching storm blanketed the helicopter shortly after it took off and the helicopter's tail rotor apparently hit something. The helicopter crashed on a ridge at about 12,000 feet and rolled down a steep slope.
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