According to BBC news website there were 5 RAF sea kings involved. Assuming the reports to be accurate (and I'm sure crab@ will happily inform us once he has saved everyone
) then that is an excellent response from an organisation that is suffering from reduced manpower and I believe is not operating second standby crews at present either.
I believe too that the RAF Valley SAR helo is on reduced operating hours at the moment with a crew away in the Falklands so to get 5 aircraft there from the other bases is good going.
As an aside did the RN SAR helo from Prestwick get involved too? There seems no mention of it but of course the press may have got it slightly wrong and included it as a RAF one
