Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, celebrated 35 years of partnership with the UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) and honored recent heroic lifesaving efforts of the MCA.
A recognition ceremony was held at the Farnborough International Airshow.
The relationship between Sikorsky and the MCA dates back to 1983 when the MCA, through Her Majesty’s Coastguard, began operating the Sikorsky S-61 helicopter.
The HM Coastguard fleet currently includes 12 Sikorsky S-92® aircraft operating from Newquay, Caernarfon, Sumburgh, Stornoway, Humberside and Inverness.
Since April 2015, the MCA has utilized its S-92 fleet to conduct 4,500 search and rescue missions.
“Sikorsky is honored to be a part of the MCA’s mission for the past 35 years and is proud that the S-92 plays such a critical role in providing a safe, efficient and reliable aircraft with which to save lives,” said Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems Executive Vice President Dale Bennett.
“With Sikorsky a part of Lockheed Martin, our focus is to fully support all our commercial helicopter customers and their missions.”
“I am very proud of the partnership we have with Sikorsky which has developed over the last 35 years,” said Damien Oliver, MCA Aviation Program Director.
“Sikorsky’s aircraft offer the very best in search and rescue capabilities, without which our crews across the UK could not deliver a first-class search and rescue helicopter service, saving the lives of those in difficulty at sea, in coastal areas and inland throughout the UK.”
The ceremony included honoring recent lifesaving efforts by the HM Coastguard helicopter crew at Inverness.
The Sikorsky Winged-S Rescue Award is bestowed upon those who perform a lifesaving rescue with a Sikorsky aircraft.
In June 2018, two boys were winched to safety by a four-person HM Coastguard crew operating an S-92 helicopter.
(‘Just in the nick of time’ – WATCH the dramatic moment our HM Coastguard Inverness helicopter race against a rising tide, as they swoop in and rescue two young boys, aged 11 and 14, who are clinging to rocks at Hopeman East Beach, near Elgin, Scotland. Courtesy of officialCoastguard and YouTube. Posted on Jun 7, 2018.)
The boys, ages 11 and 14, were swimming in the ocean when the tide began to rise and they found themselves unable to swim back to shore.
The boys were able to climb on top of an offshore rock formation as the rising tide threatened to submerge the rocks.
A concerned citizen spotted the boys and notified HM Coastguard.
It is believed one of the children got into difficulty while swimming and was able to make his way to the rocks.
His friend swam out to help him and stayed with him on the rocks as the tide quickly began to rise.
Once on scene, it took the precision and skill of the Inverness coastguard helicopter just under 3 minutes to swoop in and rescue the two children, winching them to safety on a nearby beach.
“This incident could easily have turned into a really tragic one,” explained Kaimes Beasley, duty controller for HM Coastguard.
“One of the boys had already been washed off the rocks once and thankfully managed to clamber back on.
