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[b said:
Quote[/b] ]All forces rescueaircraft are tasked from RCCK (rescue and co-ordination centre Kinross). All air ambulances are tasked from AirDesk, all CG helios are tasked from CG MRCC/MRSCs. Coastguard have direct lines to the other centres and work closely with them.
A MoD SAR ( Search And Rescue ) aircraft are tasked on deployment from 1 of 2 Rescue Cordination Centres based in the UK. One is based at Mountbatten in Plymouth covering the southern region and the other is at Patrive castle in Scotland covering the north.
MoD SAR helicopters are called direct from the nearest Coastguard station that is dealing with the incident using a directline phone to the duty officer in the crewroom, meanwhile a TELEX is sent to the relevent RCC from the coastguard giving relevent details on the job in hand.
High cover aircraft from Coastal command that have NIMROD aircraft, ( Rescue callsigns RESCUE 001 in the South and Rescue 002 in the north ) are call upon to act in a SAR mission from the duty officer ONLY from a RCC at a request from a WATCH manager in the coastguard.
Royal Navy helicopter are the only ones to carry a quailified DIVER, as Diver is a branch of the Navy all winchman must be quailifed to Ships Diver.
Helicopters contracted to the MCA from Bristows are all manned by civilian aircrew that have had operational flying duties within thier career, with the winchman having been paramedic standard for at least 5 years before flying duties on these aircraft. These helicopters are also contacted directly from a coastguard station .
AIR AMBULANCES do not have any connection within the SAR role, but however can be called upon to ASSIST, the helicopter can only be called upon by any of the 5 emergency services via the AMBULANCE control room covering the county of the incident.
POLICE helicopters can be used for SAR roles and are often called upon mainly for SEARCHES by using it high powered NITESUN spot light and FLIR camera.
Rescue aircraft from other countries can also be called upon via RCC or Coastguard, here at Dover, we often see French,German and Belguim sea kings exercising in the Dover Straits. Belguim helicopters crews are like our navy and carry a winchman/diver. ( Belguim have a reco chamber, which to us is quicker and nearer to us here ).
When the assistant of a RNLI lifeboat is required, contact is firstly made to the stations LAUNCHING AUTH ( LA ), and are asked " REQUEST LAUNCH ", it's up to the stations LA to wether the boat is launch or not.
Hope this helps and clears up a few things.
Andy
Ex Aux CG, ex Walmer Launching crew, Father was 28 years in coastguard