 protocols, with Honorary Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, describing the system’s collapse as “disturbing.”){kind=link}
The fatal helicopter crash that claimed eight lives, including Defence Minister Dr Edward Omane Boamah, has sparked serious concerns about the failure of Ghana’s Search and Rescue (SAR) protocols, with Honorary Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, describing the system’s collapse as “disturbing.”
In a detailed statement on his X page, Mr Simons noted that a military aircraft carrying very important persons (VVIPs) should have been equipped with a standard Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) beacon, designed to activate on crash impact and transmit distress signals via the international Cospas-Sarsat satellite network.
The Cospas-Sarsat system, coordinated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is designed to relay crash signals to Rescue Coordination Centers (RCCs). Ghana’s RCC is in Accra, while its Mission Control Center (MCC) is based in the UK. According to Simons, Ghana claims compliance with the Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS), which also includes Autonomous Distress Tracking (ADT) capabilities.
“Immediately the helicopter crashed, a signal should have been transmitted… activating multiple institutions in Ghana, from NADMO and the Ghana Maritime Authority to 37 Military Hospital and the Ambulance Service. Somehow… this elaborate mechanism simply failed to fully activate,” Simons wrote.
Even if the Cospas-Sarsat system had failed, Simons explained, a personal locator beacon (PLB) transmitting on 121.5 MHz could have served as a backup, triggering the Air Force’s “flight following and tracking” protocol. This should have led to aircraft being scrambled to pinpoint the crash site.
Instead, he said, the response was “entirely uncoordinated,” with much of the initial work left to untrained locals, and live images of the confusion broadcast on social media. The delay, he warned, could have cost potential survivors their lives before air ambulances reached the scene.
Simons urged the official inquiry to investigate how and why the SAR framework failed so completely, from the lack of signal activation to the slow arrival of trained responders and the loss of crucial evidence from the crash site.
“On paper, Ghana’s system looks flawless,” he said. “But in practice, every link in the chain broke down.”