This all happened 8 years ago in Essex. The county Fire service trained 50 of us to conduct off-shore ship fire-fighting in and around the Essex North kent Coast. We were trained in embarking and dis-embarking, Winch delivery and extraction, Crash and underwater escape proceedures. All very exciting and worthwhile. When it came to figuring out who would pay for the helicopters after the event (Ie after a real incident) it all went Tits up! Government said that it would be down to County, County said it would be insurance then it came down to insurance companies being overseas etc and round and round it went. We thought that salvage rights would be applicable also and we had our eyes on a lovely cruise ship that went up and down the Thames weekly from Tilbury! lol
Funny actually because only last week we threw away the helmets and imersion suits because they had degraded so much in storage they were useless. Another big "Flagship" rolled out by Government at the time that soon died a death when there was no more publicity to be had.
Same thing is now happening with USAR Urban search and rescue. Millions of pounds of equipment and training for "Terrorist" incident solution. Just lots and lots of Bigwigs getting their pictures taken next to shiny new lorries.
Another thing as well that comes to mind....We get a Death payment of 5 times Salary to Our Families should we die on Duty but if it is "Terrorist" linked the Old Insurance clause of "War, Riots, Strikes Civil commotion Nuclear incident and Terrorism" Clause comes into effect. In other words we get F
K all!
Be interesting to see if the Privatised SAR boys will be interested in working alongside the Fire brigades in the future!