Originally Posted by
Dan Dare
When the noise stops probably isn't the time to be thinking about who to tell - much easier to call MAYDAY to someone that already know who you are, what you are, where you've been and where you were going. Better still if they have a radar to record roughly where you disappeared (so London FIR only as a last resort).
For that very reason, when operating Farnborough East I would suggest to pilots crossing the Channel that they stay on frequency at least until the FIR boundary (by which time they probably had Le Touquet in sight) even though officially it was outside my area of operation.
All radar positions at Farnborough have button on their VCCS which connects to D & D and is answered instantly when pressed so they could initiate SAROPS within seconds if we alerted them.