Here's a real winner 

Fuming emergency services are considering whether to prosecute a tramper who set off his emergency beacon because he was apparently running late and wanted a helicopter ride to his car.

The man, in his 60s, was tramping in South Westland and set off the beacon on Thursday afternoon.

At a cost of about $10,000 the Solid Energy Rescue Helicopter flew from Greymouth, only to find the man was fine, Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) said on Friday.

MNZ's Nigel Clifford says if the man set off the beacon simply because he was running late, then it was entirely inappropriate, potentially dangerous, and a clear breach of the beacon rules.

The helicopter was tied up for two-and-a-half hours, he said.

"That aircraft was unavailable for any other genuine emergency that may have arisen."

Penalties for the mis-use of beacons range from a formal warning, infringement notice penalty of $250 and prosecution, which carries a maximum fine of $30,000.

MNZ is considering what action to take over the tramper.

"While the decision to activate a beacon is one that only the person carrying it can make, depending on their circumstances, it is not a decision that should be taken lightly. It is certainly not a taxi service," Mr Clifford said.

http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=161302&fm=psp,tst

Not enough detail in the article.

If it was a few hours then sure, w@nker.

If it was days, what about the risk/inconvenience/cost of a SAR operation and the distress to family.

Yep i wouldnt set one off unless i was hurt or if i was really worried for my saftey ie trapped by flood waters etc.
Hard to know with so few details

more info at stuff.co.nz

In the Stuff article it says he is a tramper from Nelson who has written books on the subject. Given his age of 67 that makes it fairly easy to work out who the plonker is.
On the debate of use, my view is that being overdue is not a reason to activate. Along with that your contact person should have a discussion with you regarding weather, rivers, routes etc so that if you are held up by a flooded river then not too much alarm is generated. After 24 hours this would be revised and police notified. This has worked for me when I was overdue saving a search, and has worked when I was the contact person for a couple of climbers overdue on Sabre. Police were notified and they waited another 24 hours before commencing search. That was based on what the weather was doing.

Charge him!
Heard of a family on the Milford track who set the Beacon off at night. Pilots couldn't get to the site so the had to land half km up track and walk down. Family decided they couldn't cross river and didn't know what to do. Despite having tents!! Wtf!!!!
They got told to stay the night and walk out the next day the way they came in. They were not far from the start either!! Muppets!

fletty wrote on Feb 8^th, 2013 at 5:10pm:


plus equipment & trained people

what a knob, two years ago i took my missus hunting up mavora and she slipped down a bank and broke her ankle. we had they same debate up on the mountain about weatha she could make it back or risk calling out the chopper when someone could of fallen off a bluff somewhere and be in critical condition who will need it more, in the end we limped for three hours back to the truck. i will only use mine if im dying or worse(haha).
but yea its a hard one like the others said not enough info!