The Breitling Emergency, launched in 1995 as reference A73321, is a quartz pilot’s watch with a built-in distress beacon. It has a steel case of about 43 mm with a screw-down antenna on the case, and the transmitter sends a signal on the 121.5 MHz aviation emergency frequency when the antenna is pulled out. It also has a chronograph and a date.

It was developed for pilots and for people working in remote areas, and the beacon is meant to be used once, after which the transmitter needs to be sent back for servicing. The watch was Breitling’s best-known tool watch of the decade, and later versions added a dual-frequency beacon in the Emergency II.

Collectors see the Emergency as a quirky and useful piece of 1990s tool-watch history, and it is known to have been used in real rescues. The original A73321 is no longer made, though Breitling still sells the Emergency in later generations.