Experienced mountaineers are aware ...

 ... of the fact that any avalanche transceiver will only be as effective as its user. Even if you owned the most expensive avalanche transceiver and kept practicing with it on a regular basis, this would not increase your own safety. In the event that you yourself got under an avalanche, your safety would depend on the skills of your companions.

Avalanche transceivers in practical use

A team of experts headed by Dr. Matthias Hohlrieder and Dr. Peter Mair examined to what extent avalanche transceivers are in fact capable of saving lives.

»Using an avalanche transceiver (beacon), only 16% of ski tourers are capable of finding a person trapped under an avalanche in time to save his/her life! Where several persons of a group get buried under an avalanche, only one in 145 tested persons (0.7%) in a ski touring scenario is capable of rescuing every single one of the buried persons.«

Mr. Würtl, expert in mountaineering matters, says that the results obtained with recreationalists were disastrous.

Based on data published by the SLF (Swiss Institute for Snow Science and Avalanche Research), the average expanse of an avalanche is 60 x 250 m. Rescue drills where transceivers are used in too small a search area give you a deceptive feeling of safety.

On the avalanche scene:

Companions who were not swept away by the avalanche are usually in a state of shock.

In many cases, they are friends or family members of those trapped under the snow. This increases the psychological stress enormously. Time pressure and the absolute need to succeed often trigger feelings of despair and panic. Such situations of stress make it even more difficult to handle equipment whose use needs to be practiced. As a consequence, at many avalanche sites valuable time is lost.

The crucial question is:

Would you be able to find your companions on time?

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