The Civil Air Search and Rescue Association is hoping whoever took one of their Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) training beacons over the weekend brings it back.

CASARA Kamloops region Air Deputy Larry Calvert says the beacon was likely taken on Saturday between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., in the Pritchard area.

“The beacons are orange in colour and made of plastic and they’ve about 4 inches by 6 inches by 2 inches with a little antenna,” he said. “We deployed two of them so our aircraft can practice homing in on them. They are very hard to replace and they are of actually no use to anyone outside of the search and rescue community.”

He says all aircrafts are required to carry these beacons, so if a crash was to happen, search teams have a signal to track.

Calvert says they’re just hoping to get the beacon back, no questions asked.

“They couldn’t even use it for a prank because it isn’t even on the emergency frequency, it’s on a separate frequency we use. It’s also possible that someone just saw it and decided to be a Good Samaritan and rescued it. In that case, we can arrange to pick it up.”

Anyone with information about this equipment, or who wants to drop it off for CASARA is asked to call 250-804-6163.