HC
I agree with your sentiments on humour. The jokes and comments made by crews when on SAR were certainly very close to the bone and helped to relieve the stress of dealing with some very tragic accidents - an example was a young lad who had his hat blown off on a cliff edge - it landed on some gorse so he reached over to get it unfortunately the gorse overhung the edge so he lost his balance and fell about 80ft but was just alive when we reached him - the winchman managed to keep him alive until we reached the hospital - it affected him greatly but with humour we helped him through his emotional trauma. The difference was they were made in private and we wouldn't have dreamed of saying such things in public.
This is a public forum and we don't know if any of the families have been directed to look at it!
This thread started out as a technical examination as to what has happened. If humour is required then I suggest another thread which clearly says it is humourous therefore warning any families.
HF