and some fell on stony ground
I suppose if you have to try and explain irony you might as well not bother, but I'll have a go.
Seadrill (now there's an ironic nickname given the subject) the UK had a long range maritime patrol aircraft called the Nimrod. An aircraft and crew were on standby 24/7. If a yachtsman happened to go missing at sea the crew (and possibly follow on crews) would be launched and carry out the Search part of Search and Rescue until said yachtsman was found or the search was called off.
I was just tongue in cheek making a facile comment pointing out that perhaps the scrapping of the Nimrod didn't matter so much if one could call upon the services of passing long haul airliners to conduct ad hoc datum investigations out on the (in our case) Atlantic Ocean.
Come to think of it though, the RAAF still does have platforms capable of conducting such long range search missions, I wonder whether they used them in this case and if not why not? and if they did how come Air Canada could find him and they didn't?
Wish I'd never said anything now............