Jersey Search and Rescue crash
Message from a local to me - the Channel Islands Search and Rescue Plane crashed yesterday evening on the north coast.
It was answering an emergency call to rescue two fishermen who had gone to secure their moorings on L` Ecrehous (a group of islands of Jersey's east coast and approx. 6 miles from the shore). They were actually sailing in a dinghy in gale force winds! One was found clinging to a rock and the other was still in the dinghy when they winched up by a helicopter.
There was the French helicopter, a UK helicopter, the Jersey lifeboat and the search and rescue plane involved. Both men were flown to Jersey Airport and taken by ambulance to the general Hospital in St Helier. One was hypothermic and the other was partly hypothermic -the latter was discharged from hospital but the other is stable in Intensive Care.
It is thought that the aeroplane suffered an engine failure (but not confirmed yet). Bearing in mind the weather conditions and that it was dark, it is amazing that none of the crew were killed ........... and I haven`t heard of any injuries either! The plane crashed close to the cliff edge and embedded itself in a tree; the emergency services were there within minutes.
As you can imagine it is the topic on everybody`s lips, here, today and we are in total praise of all the emergency services - they did a fantastic job.
The weather, thankfully, has abated now and it is sunshining.