I'd prefer a local one that has knowledge of the sea and knowledge of the area that they provide cover for!
Why? It's not the coastguard that knows the best way to the incident or the correct method of kit operation. It's the crews and helms of the rescue teams that are required.
So long as the mayday is answered and the correct rescue team is sent does it really matter where it's answered. We were paged this week from the Nottingham fire control room as ours was busy. The caller didn't realise that it wasn't the local control room and we were still paged in real time with no delay - this has to be better than being put on hold?
CHC Helicopters, through its membership in the Soteria* consortium, has won preferred bidder status on a 25-year contract to provide comprehensive search and rescue (SAR) services and military aircrew SAR training to the UK government, securing CHC’s place as the largest supplier of civilian SAR services in the world.
Not any more by the sound of it. Apparently an MOD civil servant involved with the tender process decided to leave and get a job at CHC instead, taking sensitive information on the tendering process with him. Seems the UK is up there with some African countries in the government corruption league table
(Not Another) Nutkin
