Boscastle awards
I would like to pass on my congratulations to all the crews, of whatever cadre, honoured for Boscastle over the last year. Most recently the FAA crew by GAPAN, the award dinner is an excellent event and the Guild only ever honours those that they feel truly deserve it. It is a shame that certain fellow members of the SAR community feel the need to "rant" about who deserves what award and what they did to receive it compared to others. I’m sure that the crew of 193 feel slightly embarrassed about all the media attention that has followed in the last 14 months and did not ask or expect any of it. Reading the letters of thanks from those rescued was probably thanks enough. The simple fact that the crew were also put forward for military awards without their knowledge and that the final decision was made by representatives from all 3 services speaks volumes.
We all agree that hovering over a house is not difficult. The situation facing 193 that day, near zero vis, intercom failure, a flooded aircraft and people needing rescuing, obviously made hovering, manoeuvring and especially winching extremely difficult. The fact that 193 were able to rescue people at all that day was surely only achievable by total crew cooperation and good leadership by the Aircraft Commander.
Believe that the Aircraft Commander was also the “winch op” for that day: but of course you already knew that crab@SAA.
BZ to all involved.