2.3 Convention on International Civil Aviation, Annex 12 - Search and Rescue
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2.3 Convention on International Civil Aviation, Annex 12 - Search and Rescue

Parent topic: 2 International Instruments

Chapter 2: Organization

2.1 Search and Rescue Services

  2.1.1 Contracting States shall, individually or in co-operation with other States, arrange for the establishment and prompt provision of search and rescue services within their territories to ensure that assistance is rendered to persons in distress. Such services shall be provided on a 24-hour basis.

  2.1.1.1 Those portions of the high seas or areas of undetermined sovereignty for which search and rescue services will be established shall be determined on the basis of regional air navigation agreements. Contracting States having accepted the responsibility to provide search and rescue services in such areas shall thereafter, individually or in co-operation with other States, arrange for the services to be established and provided in accordance with the provisions of this annex.

2.2 Search and Rescue Regions

  2.2.1 (...) Note 1. - Search and rescue regions are established to ensure the provision of adequate communication infrastructure, efficient distress alert routing and proper operational co-ordination to effectively support search and rescue services. Neighbouring States may co-operate to establish search and rescue services within a single SAR region.

  2.4.1 Each rescue co-ordination centre shall have means of rapid and reliable two-way communication with:

  • f) all maritime rescue co-ordination centres in the region and aeronautical, maritime or joint rescue co-ordination centres in adjacent regions;

  • i) alerting posts;

  • j) the COSPAS-SARSAT Mission Control Centre servicing the search and rescue region.

Chapter 3: Co-operation

  3.2.5 States shall designate a search and rescue point of contact for the receipt of COSPAS-SARSAT distress data.

Chapter 5: Operating procedures

  5.2.4 In the event that an emergency phase is declared in respect of an aircraft whose position is unknown and may be in one of two or more search and rescue regions, the following shall apply:

  • a) When a rescue co-ordination centre is notified of the existence of an emergency phase and is unaware of other centres taking appropriate action, it shall assume responsibility for initiating suitable action in accordance with 5.2 and confer with neighbouring rescue co-ordination centres with the objective of designating one rescue co-ordination centre to assume responsibility forthwith.

  • b) Unless otherwise decided by common agreement of the rescue co-ordination centres concerned the rescue co-ordination centre to co-ordinate search and rescue action shall be the centre responsible for:

    - the region in which the aircraft last reported its position; or
    - the region in which the distress site is located as identified by the COSPAS-SARSAT system.
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