Dramatic 20th April rescue on Staffa by HMS Gannet SAR

On 20th April a tourist boat with two adult crew, was making its way on sightseeing charter, to Argyll’s fabled Staffa. This is the island host to Fingals’s Cave which composer Felix Mendelssohn celebrated in his Hebridean Overture after visiting it in 1829.

On board with the crew were the charter party of two other adults and three teenagers.

The boat capsized off Staffa but all seven onboard – and a collie dog – managed to swim to the safety of a ledge in the entrance to a cave beside Fingal’s cave. Six and the dog, Jess, landed there, with the seventh on the far side of the cave entrance.

This was, however only a temporary respite. The tide was rising to threaten their perch on the ledge and, with 130 ft of sheer cliff rising behind them, there was no way out in that direction.

Clyde Coastguard were alerted and, at 16.27,  called in the Search and Rescue (SAR) unit at HMS Gannet based at Prestwick.

Eight minutes later the helicopter was airborne and on her way out west. Thirty seven minutes later they were on scene, immediately locating the stranded survivors.

The SAR crew were quick to realise that, with the rising tide,  they had little time to effect the rescue. It was obvious too that the rescue was going to be difficult and dangerous.

With the helicopter needing to keep clear above the sides of the 130ft cliffs, the winchman was going to be on the end of a very long line, at 150ft. The rock ledge that had six survivors on it was also narrow, which meant that the winchman would also have to operate very close in to the cliff sides.

The aircraft commander and observer throughout the rescue, Lieutenant Commander Dave Reese said that while weather conditions were good, the rescue was difficult, explaining that the pilot would hve to maintain a very steady hover for the half hour it would take to get all the survivors to safety.

Then the winchman / paramedic would have to manage multiple winches with fine judgment, getting those on the line up and into the aircraft quickly while stopping them spinning adn swinging on the end of the long wire and with the rock face just beside them.

In the classic RAF tradition, the pilot was nicknamed ‘Willow’ (Lieutenant Mark Wielopolski); and the winchman was ‘Wiggy’ (Petty Officer Marcus Wigfull).

‘Wiggy’ got down to the ledge, chose the two youngest for the first double ascent, then with a child strop for Jess, went up himself with the dog. After that it was two more double ascents for the remaining four o the ledge; followed by plucking the single survivor from the far side of the water entrance to the cave.

Tobermory lifeboat arrived during the airlifts but could not get in close to help because of the downdraught from the helicopter above.

It then emerged that the two crew wanted to stay on the island because the capsized boat was the inflatable tender from their larger boat anchored off Staffa. They had been using the tender to get their sightseeing clients inshore. They obviously needed to get back out to the parent boat to sail it back to port.

So the helicopter set them down on top of the island, leaving them to the care of the Tobermory lifeboat. The other survivors were flown to Lorne and the Isles Hospital in Oban on the mainland by 18.12, an hour after arriving above Staffa on the scene of the rescue to be effected.

All five and the dog were cold and shocked but had suffered no more than minor cus on the rocks as they clambered to safety out of the water.

A photograph taken, we assume, from the Tobermory lifeboat, and viewable on the Royal Navy website here, shows just how precarious was the position of the survivors from the capsized boat and just how hazardous was the helicopter rescue.