Lofty lifesavers Sometimes, lifeboats need a little help from above. The Lifeboat meets the air crew who play their part in sea rescues – and who are lifesavers in their own right It’s a chilly Sunday morning on the windy, exposed airfield at RNAS Culdrose, the Royal Navy air base on the outskirts of Helston, Cornwall. In the nearby town, residents are enjoying a lie-in or strolling to the newsagents for the Sunday papers. For the Culdrose search and rescue (SAR) helicopter crew, though, it’s the start of a busy working day – a day that will see them launching to the rescue at a moment’s notice, flying hundreds of metres off the ground, and dangling from wires above the swollen sea.

The Culdrose 771 Naval Air Squadron consists of 30 officers (pilots and observers) 18 air crewmen (winchmen and divers), and around 120 supporting engineers. Between them, they went on 215 missions in 2005, assisting 148 people. They are sometimes called upon to team up with lifeboat crews, helping with sea searches or assisting in rescues by winching casualties from lifeboats.

This morning, the current crew have arranged to practise winch transfers with the Padstow all-weather lifeboat volunteers. The First Pilot, Sqn Ldr Hugh Pierce is looking forward to the exercise. ‘I’ve got a great deal of respect for the RNLI,’ he says. ‘The lifeboat crews have an excellent training package and they are good people.We work well as a team.‘ Prepared Before team Rescue 193 gets airborne the crew gather in their office for a flight briefing.

Like lifeboat crews, helicopter crews have to take weather conditions and potential hazards into account.Wind, visibility and air temperature can all affect the helicopter’s flight. ‘It’s quite lively today,’ Hugh tells the crew, explaining that there are winds gusting up to 35 knots and that visibility may be impaired by mist. Next, Lt Si Moulton reports on any hazards that could be encountered in the Rescue 193 team’s ‘patch’, which covers a 100-mile radius. Today’s list includes hot air balloons, parachute jumps and a kite flying competition.

In case ...

It’s time for lift-off and the crew get kitted up in helmets and lifejackets. The helmets are all fitted with microphones and headphones, as communication aboard the noisy helicopter is almost impossible without them. The lifejackets are equipped with a small canister of air, which can be used for an extra breath should crew members find themselves underwater in a crashed helicopter. All crew members are trained for such an eventuality at the underwater escape training unit (known as ‘the dunker’) in Yeovilton, Somerset, where a mock-up helicopter cabin is plunged underwater with crew members inside.

‘If you’re going down, you have to register your nearest escape area such as a door or window and grab an orientation point so you know where you are after impact,’ explains Air Crewman Chic Pritchard. ‘Then you wait for the aircraft to stop moving before escaping, otherwise you may get out and be hit by a moving part.’ Teamwork Hugh and Second Pilot Jurg Brumner (who is on exchange from Germany) climb into the cockpit. Si takes a seat in the rear with Chic, along with second observer Lt Tony Sherwin.

The blades whir into action and the helicopter climbs high over the airfield.

By car, it can take as long as an hour to negotiate the windy roads and roundabouts between Helston and Padstow, but the helicopter reaches the lifeboat station at Trevose Head in minutes. Chic maintains regular radio contact with Falmouth Coastguard and Padstow lifeboat, which has just launched. As the helicopter passes over the brand new slipway, Chic pulls open the large sliding door in the rear of the aircraft.

Si attaches himself to the winch hook and perches at the edge of the door, looking down at the Tamar class lifeboat below, crashing through the waves at 20 knots. The lifeboat’s communications mast looks almost close enough to touch.

As the helicopter flies over, it is down to Tony to give positioning instructions from the rear door, as the pilots cannot see directly below.

‘Lifeboat is two o’clock,’ says Tony, ‘3m to the right …steady. Good position, good position.’ Now the two craft, lifeboat and helicopter, are moving in exact parallel, as if attached.

With Tony’s gloved hands guiding the cable, Si is winched out of the cabin, then smoothly drops downwards towards the deck of the lifeboat. ‘Disconnected,’ announces Tony. The exercise is a success – there’s enough time for an RNLI crew member to be winched aboard and returned safely to the lifeboat, before Si is brought back into the helicopter. ‘Thanks, that was good value,’ says Chic over the radio to the Padstow crew as Si unclips, leans back in his seat, and the helicopter heads back to Culdrose. A rest? Back at the base, the crew have a debrief, discussing how the exercise went and offering Tony advice on how he can continue to develop his navigation and winch operation skills. Tony recently joined the crew straight from his naval training – the others held different naval roles before applying to be air crew. ‘I was a marine engineer before this,’ explains Chic, as he and the crew tuck into lunch.

There is not much time for them to relax, though: there’s a call from Falmouth Coastguard. A group of swimmers are in difficulty off Gyllyngvase beach near Falmouth.

The crew rush off to get kitted up and are well on their way within minutes. At 1.45pm, they arrive at the beach along with the RNLI’s Falmouth inshore lifeboat and a Coastguard team. A group of 25 students has hit trouble in the heavy sea while swimming. Most are able to struggle ashore but one is spotted in difficulty 50m from the surf line. The inshore lifeboat goes to her rescue. While she is taken to the lifeboat station, three swimmers are taken to a waiting ambulance by the Coastguard team, where they are treated for hypothermia. Rescue 193 team isn’t needed on this occasion and the crew head home.

‘There have been quite a few struggling in the water this year,’ says Chic, who recently pulled a cold, exhausted surfer from the sea and winched him to safety. ‘There is a lot of job satisfaction when you do something like that,’ he says. ‘That’s why we do it, because our actions make a big difference.’ So SAR so good In the UK, SAR helicopters are operated by the: • Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) at Lee-on-Solent (Hampshire), Portland (Dorset), Stornoway (Western Isles) and Sumburgh (Shetland); • RAF at Boulmer (Northumberland), Chivenor (Devon), Leconfield (East Yorkshire), Lossiemouth (Aberdeenshire),Valley (Anglesey) and Wattisham (Suffolk); and • Royal Navy at Culdrose (Cornwall) and Prestwick (Ayrshire).

Requests for their assistance are handled by the Aeronautical Rescue Centre at RAF Kinloss.

In the Republic of Ireland, Irish Coast Guard SAR helicopters are based at Dublin,Waterford and Shannon airports, and Finner in Co. Sligo.

As well as sea and cliff rescues, helicopter crews such as Rescue 193 can be called upon to airlift patients from one hospital to another and respond to major accidents. The RNAS helicopters’ primary military tasks include transporting personnel and assisting jet pilots following an ejection or crash. .