Well done Leconfield Sea King guys for making the right decision and landing -
very smart move in the circumstances. Safety first etc...
The November before last (2005) during the snow dump that brought Cornwall to a standstill I was stranded at Treliske Hospital in Truro. The A30 (my route home) was blocked by abandoned Nissan Micras and a variety of Kias and Hyundais so I waited for several hours before slaloming home in my Range Rover at midnight when everybody else had given up the ghost of crossing Bodmin Moor..(so much for not needing a 4x4 - mine saved me from having to hunker down with a stuffed rabbit/kitten at the Jamaica Inn
).
During the wait for the road to clear (as well as sampling the exquisite delicacies of the hospital canteen
) I watched the sea kings approaching the treliske hospital helipad bringing casualties in. It was a proper blizzard - full white out conditions.
How they could see anything in the last 50 ft of the approach I do not know.
If it wasn't a blizzard already it certainly was by the time their downwash started licking up the snow.
Heroes to a man IMHO
- that was a night when almost everybody had given up on driving and the Sea Kings were still going.
SB