And one that didn't!
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M.V. Dara was a British Indian Steam Navigation Company liner, built in 1948, Barclay, Curle and Co; 5,030 tons 398.7 x 54.8; 14 knots; oil engines.
Dara mostly travelled between the Arabian Gulf and the Indian continent, carrying expatriate passengers who had employment in the Gulf States. She had accomodation for 20 1st Class, 54 2nd Class and 1377 deck passengers.
A bomb exploded on board, while off the coast of Dubai, on the 8th April 1961 which caused the vessel to eventually sink. It was never clearly established who planted the bomb, or why, but there was a high loss of life attributed to the incident, despite the fact that no one was on board when it sank. At the time, it was the worst peace time disasters on the high seas, second to the Titanic. There is some conjecture that, due to the circumstances, the perpetrator of the crime may also have been on board at the time of the explosion. Captained by Charles Elson, there was a total of 819 on board, including 19 officers and 113 crew; 238 died from burns or drowning.
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RAF Search and Rescue: -
The following message was left in the guest book by Jack Frith on the 21/10/04. He has kindly agreed for me to repeat the message here, (thanks Jack).
I was the captain of the Search and Rescue Shackleton that was sent from Aden to search for and aid the Dara. The photograph that you are using was taken by one of my crew from the beam position on the aircraft when we arrived on scene. I dropped a Lindholm rescue gear (contained a dingy, food, water etc) to what appeared to be some surviviors in the water but since no effort was made to reach the gear it had to be assumed that we were too late. Seems a long time ago now.[
and your point is? You said ASRA gear hardly ever saved anyone - I was just giving a good example where I know for sure it did!! I could reel off loads of incidents where it wasn't dropped or if they were dead, it wasn't going to bring them back to life!! Fact is, it is a life saver if you can deliver it in the right place at the right time. Without a suitable platform to deliver it... there's NO chance for those in the water.
(And its not just about 'droning' around for hours and doing it automatically. Until you've spent hours doing a visual search for a dinghy or body, you have no idea just how hard it is to spot them!)