Vigilance can report that Royal Navy and RAF Search and Rescue helicopters from Scotland and East Yorkshire respectively have plucked seven people from a cargo vessel aground in North Wales.
The Royal Navy Sea King helicopter from HMS Gannet in Prestwick, Ayrshire was first on scene last night (April 3) at approximately 9.50pm BST and winched five of the seven crew off the foundering ship before sustaining damage to the aircraft’s winch at 10.41pm BST – leaving two crew members and a Royal Navy aircrewman on board.
Shortly later (approx 12.35am BST), the duty aircraft from RAF Leconfield from just north of Hull arrived at the North Wales bay and successfully rescued the remaining ship’s crew and the Royal Navy Winchman (completing just before 1am BST).
Both helicopter crews had to negotiate significantly adverse conditions in transit to the scene and during the rescues, particularly RAF Leconfield with a slow and difficult cross country transit in snowy conditions, flying low to use both roads and railways for visual references.
The drama unfolded last night (April 3) after the 82 metre ship struck rocks in the grip of a Force 9 severe gale at approx 8.20pm BST.
Already in the air after a previous call out, the duty crew of HMS Gannet’s Royal Navy Sea King Mark 5 helicopter from Prestwick in Ayrshire was diverted to the incident – refuelling at RAFValley before arriving on scene.
The ship was aground close to Raynes Jetty at Llanddulas near ColwynBay and two RNLI lifeboats were also in attendance.
It had initially been intended to winch the crew members clear and deliver them to a safe landing site at North Wales Police Headquarters in nearby Colwyn Bay, but the naval helicopter’s crew had reported what they thought was a small fire on board the vessel – this later turned out not to be the case.
With the risk of fire, the precaution was taken to close the adjacent A55 to allow the helicopter to rapidly winch and then land on the road to disembark those rescued as quickly as possible.
Each of the five people was lifted in a separate winch – the final winch catching on a light on the ship. Although this was cleared, the winch was damaged and the Royal Navy Sea King diverted to a sister air station at RAFValley to have it repaired.
“Conditions were extremely challenging,” explained HMS Gannet’s duty observer, Lieutenant Angela Lewis RN. “Sea spray from the waves was being whipped up to a height of about 60ft in places and we were in the hover at about 80ft, so it was quite nerve-wracking.
“We put Petty Officer Mike ‘H’ Henson down on the deck of the vessel and he then quickly packaged the first four members of the crew in separate winches.
“We dropped them off on the A55 to a waiting ambulance and returned for the remaining three crew and our Winchman. Unfortunately we were only able to complete one lift on this second run before the winch was damaged.”
The RAF Sea King crew from Leconfield was scrambled to North Wales immediately after they had delivered an injured seaman to Hull Royal Infirmary at around 21.45hrs.
The weather over the Pennines was extremely poor.
Aircraft captain Flt Lt Greg Lings said: “With low cloud, snow and the icing level we couldn’t fly over the bad weather so we were forced to literally hover-taxi for over an hour with only 500m visibility over the M62 from Goole to Manchester.”
“Flt Lt Chris Palgrave did an amazing job getting us to the scene and Sgt Jim Bethell recovered the stranded Royal Navy winchman and the remaining two crew members to the aircraft.”
Exchange Royal Navy co-pilot, Lieutenant James Bullock RN who flew the RAF Sea King during the rescue, said: “Firstly we had to locate the ship in poor visibility due to the snow.
“We found it pinned against the embankment of the A55 by the high winds which made the recovery of the remaining crewmen more difficult because of the angle we had to hover at due the turbulent and bumpy conditions.”
The RAF Sea King landed on the A55 to hand over the ship’s crewmen to waiting ambulances before recovering to RAFValley to spend the night.
For the crew from HMS Gannet it was Petty Officer Mike ‘H’ Henson’s first duty as a qualified search and rescue aircrewman. He had transferred from operational Merlin helicopters. In total he rescued 14 people yesterday – nine in a previous call out to hillwakers lost on Ben MacDui, the UK’s second highest mountain, in the Cairngorm Range.
A total of 14 people were rescued by this duty Royal Navy Sea King crew from HMS Gannet in the course of three call outs yesterday (nine on Ben MacDui and five from North Wales ship; there was a further call to a stricken yacht between the Isle of Man and Holyhead – the RNLI was also in attendance and, in the end, helicopter intervention was not required)