Outback rescue points to phone black spots

A 14-hour search for two men stranded in South Australia's outback could have been avoided if the region had mobile phone reception, a charter pilot says.

Darryl Koch, 39, and Ben Francis, 33, went missing during a sightseeing tour over Lake Eyre on Tuesday after an engine failure in their light plane forced them to make an emergency landing.

They were rescued the following morning with minor injuries 30km northwest of Marree after an extensive air search.

Local charter pilot Trevor Wright, who helped lead the search, suspected a fault was in the pair's emergency locator beacon or EPIRB.

He also said finding the pair could have been relatively straightforward if Marree had phone reception.

"I don't know if it [the situation] could have been avoided but it would have made it a lot easier that's for sure," Mr Wright told AAP on Thursday.

He said placing mobile phone towers in strategic locations in outback SA was a "no brainer".

"You don't expect them every 20 miles. What we're saying is at strategic locations ... where they've got small communities," Mr Wright said.

"It's about the safety of the community and being able to do business."

Mr Koch and Mr Francis, from Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula, had flown to Lake Eyre to see it filling with water after heavy outback rains.

"And that's when we had a total engine failure, and then it was just about putting all of our training into motion and finding a place to land safely," Mr Francis told ABC radio.

Acting Information Economy Minister Susan Close said she was relieved the two men were rescued.

She said the government was speaking to the commonwealth about the second round of the Mobile Black Spot Program and looking at priority locations for additional mobile coverage.

"Of course we are in a world now where we rely even more on mobile phones for communication," the minister said.

But the SA opposition said the state government was dragging the chain.

"Our government is very well aware of the needs of communities like Blinman, Marree, Oodnadatta, and Innamincka and many others which receive tens of thousands of tourists each year and do not have mobile phone service," local Liberal MP Member Dan van Holst Pellekaan said.