In the past several years, SAR teams in Washington State have experienced searches that were suspended after lengthy efforts – but with the subject not located.  Scheduled as a presentation at the October 2021 Washington State Search and Rescue Conference, “Why Searches Fail” begins with a review of characteristics shared by these recent “failed” searches; with a summary of why searches are suspended; and with a review of common reasons that subjects are not found.

In mission-critical industries, such as aviation and medicine, formal “failure mode analysis” methods are used to identify and dissect the potential causes of failures and to reveal strategies to prevent them. This presentation will show examples of how such analysis methods can applied to examine causes of “failed searches” in more detail.  The aim of this presentation is to show SAR organizations how they can apply such analysis tools to understand their own search processes, and to help them identify actionable steps that SAR teams and incident managers can take to reduce the chance that their next search will fail.