SARH to go

[Marty H]

Crabette

I am sorry to have to tell you that your assessment of the situation is entertaining but considerably wide of the mark.

I am told that the crews had no particular attachment to the previous operator or aircraft.
The simple fact was that there was an enormous pride in being able to carry out any task at any time and in virtually any weather and it was widely recognised by the Coastguards, press and public alike.

I sincerely believe that all the crews have found the affair one in which they would have done anything to avoid.

To the present operator’s credit, over the months they encouraged full and open reporting from the crews on the difficulties being experienced in managing to achieve limited SAR.
Again to their credit, the operator eventually sent in some “grown ups” and decided that even though the aircraft was acceptable for Public Transport the aircraft ticked one too many of the unsafe boxes for SAR.

The CAA independently even placed limits on it during the day.

There has indeed recently been a great deal of work by the operator although there are only a few fixes being presently added due to certification timings.
Whether these fixes are enough to tick the right boxes remains to be seen.

I feel you have been grossly unfair to the crews who may have been tempted just to keep quiet, provide a limited service and hope no one suffers in the mean time.

The crews should be congratulated on putting their heads above the parapet so trying to sort this out sooner rather than later especially as the poorer weather approaches.
Remember these are not the usual problems that most of the crews have seen before when changing aircraft types/equipment fit both in civvy and military street.

I am afraid that the “word on the street” as you put it, was that this was all a bit of an experiment in the run up to SARH.

This affair will hopefully result in a much better service and mitigate to some extent the weakness all along which was that the aircraft/fit was clearly selected by those inexperienced in such matters.

I would be very interested to see if it has been presented as an option by any of the bidders on SARH.

Does anyone know?


Regards

Marty