A crash reported by a cell phone alert system near Sitka turned out to be a false alarm over the weekend.
Around 4 p.m. on Sunday, the Sitka Police Department received an alert from Apple, reporting a crash on Kruzof Island, about 13 nautical miles west of Sitka. The alert came from a cell phone that was pinging near North Beach, the location of a popular U.S. Forest Service cabin.
Sitka Fire Department Chief Brian McLaughlin said they tried calling the number several times, but the calls went straight to voicemail. So a team of Alaska State Troopers, Forest Service personnel, and an EMT boated to the island to investigate. McLaughlin said once they arrived, two of the crew got in a utility vehicle and began the trek along several miles of old logging road to North Beach.
“On the way there, just about all the way over to the beach, they stopped, found the phone that had been pinging, but no signs of distress otherwise,” McLaughlin said.
He said they continued to the beach and found a family camping in the area.
“That family confirmed they had seen this individual after the time that the distress alert was sent, and confirmed that there was no distress,” he said. “So the police held onto the phone, brought it back to the city police department, and we came back after that.”
McLaughlin said there’s no penalty or fine if a smart phone’s crash detection activates when there hasn’t been an accident, but he asks that Sitkans let local first responders know if it happens.
“In this case, I don’t think the gentleman even knew. But if you do find out that you had some kind of inadvertent emergency distress signal go off, just let us know so we can make sure you’re okay,” he said. “Ultimately, that is the number one priority, and then we can either recall or not send resources out that that aren’t needed.”
In an email, Sitka Police Department spokesperson Serena Wild told KCAW the phone’s owner dropped it while riding a 4-wheeler on the trail. He picked it up at the police station on Monday.
