Originally Posted by
Saintsman
A lot of people forget that the primary purpose of RAF & RN rescue aircraft were for the military themselves. Civies came second.
If a helicopter was on route to a civilian incident and a military requirement popped up, they would divert.
However, now that its all privatised, I'm not sure where priorities lie.
They are in theory HM Coastguard assets, so I would imagine the prioritisation depends on the job. Thankfully we have relatively few military aircraft incidents these days (albeit due to relatively few military aircraft!)