Since its inception in 1982 the Cospas-Sarsat System has provided distress alert information which has assisted in the rescue of over 11,000 persons in over 3,300 distress situations. In 1999 the System provided information which was used to rescue 1,227 persons in 340 distress situations. The locations of these events are depicted on the map below.
The details for specific SAR events assisted by Cospas-Sarsat during 1999, as reported by National Administrations to the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat, is documented in Annex C to the "Cospas-Sarsat Report on System Status and Operations No. 16, C/S R.007".
Annex C provides both overall statistical information as well as a short description of each SAR event for which Cospas-Sarsat data was instrumental. Each alert is categorised as either an:
Distress Events for which Cospas-Sarsat data was provided to SAR services but not used because the necessary information had previously been provided by another source or the distress situation had already been resolved, are indicated with italicised text. These SAR events were not included in the Cospas-Sarsat summary statistics.