Like most people, I was shocked when I woke up last Tuesday to news that Rescue 116 had disappeared off the Mayo coast and four crewmembers were missing. Then a casualty was found and she was critical. Now as I write there are 3 crew members still missing. This incident has shocked the country and we’re all talking about it. Rightly so too as it highlights quite a few things but one is that we as a nation are reliant on helicopters quite a bit.
This is of course not the first loss of life we’ve had with our air-sea rescue services either. No back in 1999 Captain Dave O’Flaherty, Captain Michael Baker, Sergeant Paddy Mooney, and Corporal Niall Byrne were all killed in Waterford when their Air Corps Dauphin helicopter crashed. They were returning from a successful rescue mission but crashed having aborted three attempted landings at Waterford Airport due to the foggy conditions.
The late Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick has a Roscommon GAA connection, her sister Niamh worked with the Roscommon minor team of 2006 as their sports psychologist and was also involved in 2010 when Roscommon won the Connacht Championship. This is all to highlight the closeness of events that happen.
Now back to the helicopters the Gardaí routinely use a helicopter as part of their policing and on the night of the Rescue 116 crash in Mayo a Garda helicopter was in action in the skies of Roscommon. In fact, if you heard a loud noise in the sky on Tuesday night it could well have been them, in addition, there is an Air Corps helicopter based in Custume Barracks Athlone to provide an air ambulance service.
We see politicians being photographed with the helicopter and you’d almost swear they either flew it or bought it the way they talk however the sad thing is that like a lot of things in the country we’re freewheeling when it comes to services. The car is out of gear and we’re coasting down the hill that’s grand but if there’s a hill to climb we can’t get up it! And folks we’re in very hilly ground when it comes to helicopters!
You may have heard talk of top cover and the fact that the Air Corps, when asked, were unable to provide it for R116. During Search and Rescue Topcover Missions the Air Corps will arrive on scene ahead of the Rescue helicopter. They can make contact with the Vessel to ascertain the condition of the patient, check the weather on scene and pass these details back to the helicopter. They also pass on relevant instructions from the helicopter crews to the vessel so they can prepare for winching.
The Radar Operators monitor the helicopter and target vessel. They pass on constant updates of bearing and range so the helicopter crews can work out performance calculations and fuel planning. The flight crew keep communications with the Coast Guard and Air Traffic control and advise them on the status of the mission. When the patient has been transferred and assessed the flight crew will then coordinate with Air Traffic control once a destination has been decided upon.
So, the Air Corps were unable to help, why? Well, it seems that over the years the numbers coming into the Air Corps has been fallen and those leaving have been going up. You see we decided to stop recruiting people to various organisations during the “recession” and these decisions are returning to bite. The fact that the Air Corps could not fly when requested last week did not cause the deaths of the crew on R116 but it highlights the problems we have.
We did not recruit Gardaí but we still have people retiring, what happens? We lose loads of experience together and a police force lacking in experience. We have inexperienced supervisors and managers and all sorts of problems arise. Government addresses this by closing stations to reduce the need to supervise or manage (they have not admitted this but they have not properly explained the rational so I may be correct). The same in local authorities, health care and basically all public services.
The two Garda helicopters and the Garda plane are flown by the Air Corps, the Emergency Aeromedical Service (Air Ambulance) operated for the National Ambulance service which Marian Harkin and Gerry Cowley advocated when they were TDs in Dáil Éireann is flown by the Air Corps, the maritime patrols are flown by the Air Corps, the Government Ministers are flown by the Air Corps and their primary military role is to provide air support to the Army and Navy.
We did not recruit sufficient people for years and now we are hoping that training a few pilots will solve the problem. I'm sorry but that will not cut the mustard. We need major investment to be carried out very quickly and a decision needs to be taken to increase the size and capability of the Air Corps.
We did not recruit sufficient people for years and now we are hoping that training a few pilots will solve the problem. I'm sorry but that will not cut the mustard. We need major investment to be carried out very quickly and a decision needs to be taken to increase the size and capability of the Air Corps.
