Scottish Helicopter Search and Rescue Unit Has Had Its Busiest Year since Records Began
Friday, March 12th, 2010The RN have disclosed its Scottish helicopters search and rescue unit has had its busiest year since records began. The crew based at HMS Gannet in Prestwick answered to 447 call outs in 2009 – thrashing their prior high of 382. The unit saved 378 folks, including a 16-year-old girl who slipped off her bike and dropped into a stream, and an OAP whose vehicle was engulfed during flooding. The team, that has received multiple honours, led a stricken Cessna pilot to safety in another incident.
HMS Gannet is one of 8 army search and rescue bases round the UK and covers an area of almost 98,000 square miles. Plans to move the search and rescue operation thirty miles to Glasgow airfield appeared last month.
Soteria Consortium, a personal company named by the Ministry of Defence as the preferred bidder to supply the UK’s rescue copters, wants to shift the base for commercial reasons. Commanding Officer Lieutenant Chief Debdash Bhattacharya honored the “phenomenal effort” of his crew.
He revealed : “This is an incredible accomplishment. I’m enormously pleased with each individual who is part of the close team at HMS Gannet. “From the air crew to the engineers, weather forecasters, office staff, ground crews and support staff, totally everybody plays their part in guaranteeing that there’s a search and rescue copter prepared to retort twenty-four hours per day to whatever the call could be.
It is an outstanding sustained effort directed at supporting the people of Scotland, Northerly Eire and northwards England”. Lieutenant Chief Martin Ford, 46, has attended six hundred call-outs in his 7 years with the unit.
The officer, who is living in Cornwall, was given an Air Force Cross for his part in the rescue mission following the Boscastle floods in 2004 and the Queen’s Commendation for Bravado in the Air after helping a threatening rescue on Ben Nevis. Petty Officer Marcus Wigfull, 38, who resides in Troon, has racked up seven hundred call-outs in his 13-year career and received the same honour after winching 3 folk to safety from a stricken yacht in Ayrshire.
Local congressmen have reacted angrily to the suggested move from HMS Gannet. The agreement with Soteria is expected to be finalised over the following few months and the new service phased in from 2012. The consortium is made from Thales UK, the Royal Bank of Scotland and chopper operator CHC.
The MoD asserted it had made clear in its bid that it would move the search and rescue service to Glasgow. But a spokesperson declared no roles would be lost and that HMS Gannet, as a Royal Naval air station, had a broader army role.
John Scott, Conservative MSP for Ayr, described it as a “bombshell” for the area and local Labour MP Brian Donohoe said that he was “speechless” at the choice.


