Re:Goes to show you.... (Score 1)

The ELT's I've seen, and yes you are right don't need to be turned on, but they do have a safety that prevents inadvertent activation. True, we don't know if there was an impact and we don't know if the battery life was expired or not. ELT's are best installed in survivable places, like the tail, and that would require a large impact or one where the tail hit first. We won't know for a while what happened. As for nosing into a mountain, I would hope he know about the air currents that pass over mountains and nosing into a mountain is possible. As for rushing to judgments, if you think the aviation community is bad, listen to the media.