Military emergency beacon failure rate almost 50%

Emergency locator beacons used in US Air Force ejection seats and parachute packs have failed in 24% of bench tests and almost 50% of real ejections.

The USAF bought 17,000 AN/URT-44 beacons from Signal Engineering Inc at a cost of US$30 million, with deliveries taking place in 2009 and 2010.

But after only a couple of years since the beacons were installed, military air crash investigators realised that they had failed to work in many crashes. A review of crash reports showed that out of 22 ejections, the beacons failed 10 times.

Furthermore, when bench tested, the AN/URT-44 was found to have a failure rate of 24%.

The USAF is now in the process of replacing the entire fleet of beacons with a new beacon, at a cost of US$69 million. The Air Force put out a call for new designs in January.