A P-8 Poseidon and A400M Atlas were scrambled to the Atlantic Ocean to rescue a distressed sailor.

The dramatic moment a sailor was rescued by two RAF aircraft off the coast of Scotland was filmed by the Royal Air Force.

The yacht was struggling in waves higher than 19ft, off the coast of Scotland and midway between the UK and Greenland on Saturday.

A Poseidon P-8 Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft used its advanced surface search capabilities to locate the stricken yacht, enabling an A400M Atlas transport aircraft to check the area and locate the yacht visually. The P-8 then made radio contact with the sailor, confirming that he was uninjured.

The Atlas dropped their Air Sea Rescue Apparatus (ASRA) to the yacht through a rear ramp drop, where it descended via parachute.

 

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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93 COMMENTS

  2. At least at sea you can depend on strangers to step up and help each other.

    There is still good in the world – thankfully.

    Thanks fo rthe good news story George.

    CR

    • The P8’s bomb bay is too small. The Nimrod could carry and drop a fully provisioned lifeboat (10 man, if I remember correctly). It could also drop quite a few inflatable life rafts as well.

      • Never mind, it’s only fuel and capacity that was wasted but we saved £4bn by cancelling the Nimrod 4 ASW in 2011 about to go into service so we’ve had no ASW capacity for 10 years , depending on NATO, then spent almost the same on the Poseidon with the tax dollars going to Uncle Sam to get an inferior service. We’ve only got 12,000 miles of coastal waters with loads of comms, power cables and gas, which are not important at all. Par for the course, what do you expect?

        • Saved? I believe that money was already spent.

          ASW comes from other areas too.

          Regardless, we have MPA capability now. My only gripes are the small number and that they do not use Stingray but an inferior Torpedo in their primary ASW mission.

        • Although Nimrod 4 feels like a wasted/lost opportunity, the reality was that the changes being made would not have been supported by the aging airframes. Hence the cancellation, IIRC

      • I still maintain we should have purchased the Japanese bP-1 instead. Purpose built 4 engine MPA with a large bomb bay, able to prosecute targets low down in the weeds, unlike our American modern airliner! What’s not to like?

        • Deep,

          Returns of merchandise might be appreciated by Boeing Inc./Uncle Sugar in view of pending US order. There would probably be a restocking fee assessed. 🤔😁

      • Should have purchased the superior Japanese P8 and made it the aircraft for also the E7 Australian AWACs radar. UK with the Japanese purchase could have Anglicized the airframe with UK engines (BR700 series), UK electronics and weapons, something that UK can’t easily do with the Boeing 737NG airframe (not a digital plane like the Japanese).

    • Yeah this is very inneficent. A P8 should have been able to accomplish the mission.
      Or maybe a drone, but in that case drone speed might be an issue.

  4. BZ to all involved. My question is what on earth was someone doing in a yacht in that part of the Atlantic in October? It gets rough out there at this time of year.

    • Opens your eyes when you realise the P-8 found such a small vessel with ease, in that weather in the middle of nowhere!

      • Especially a plastic boat with the mast gone over the side which means the radar reflector will have gone as well…

        I guess that radar is designed to search for very small objects e.g. periscopes..?

          • P-8A, equipped w/ AN/APY-10 radar set has SAR, ISAR, periscope detection and navigation modes, among others. Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) mode facilitates detection and classification of surface targets at extended ranges.

          • And, evidently, an AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor. This radar set does practically everything imaginable (perhaps including providing Michelin multistar meals for the flight crew 😁). Some reputed capabilities are mind boggling to dinosaurs like me who still roam the earth.

        • To be fair they could have roughly triangulated his broadcast position…..or distress transmission….or his GPS could have worked….and they might have used radar as well.

          • True and if he was as bashed around has he looked, with the dismasting he may not have had a great navigational plot of where he was.

          • He’d have hand held gps at the very least and a means to communicate the info, Shirley Temple, he’s in the Atlantic ffs!!!

  5. Applaud the rescue.

    Off topic, the Chinese tried to abduct & did beat up a Hong Kong protester from outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester. Only the intervention of our police rescued him. It could’ve ended much worse. Truely shocking to allow the PRC to bully & intimidate protests on our own streets. Surprised how quickly the article was pulled from the BBC newsfeed.
    I hope the strongest remonstration is made to the PRC & they’re left in no doubt we will not tolerate this.
    Doesn’t help that the Tories are seeking to undermine our rights to protest themselves too.

    • On another note, Chinese officials are offering former RAF pilots up to £240,000 per year to train their pilot against Western tactics. Rather concerning, and apparently 30-50 have already taken up offers.

      • It’s more interesting that the authorities say they can do nothing about it.

        Compare with the bomb the Biden administration just put under US citizens working in the China semiconductor industry, which is setting China back a decade or more.

        • “Compare with the bomb the Biden administration just put under US citizens working in the China semiconductor industry, which is setting China back a decade or more.”

          This has not gotten much attention in the news but this is a huge step. The unofficial “war” with China has been joined and its about time.

      • Anything relating to tactics & capability, and I mean ANYTHING should fall with the remit of the Official Secrets Act. If for some mid boggling reason it doesn’t then the law needs changing immediately.

        As for the scum bags going over there I’d take their f*cking pensions & I don’t say that lightly. Disgusting really.

        The good old ‘tally ho!’ brigade just looking out for themselves.

        • I believe as officers there pension can not be taken from them as they will have drawn all their pension pot on leaving the service something ORs can’t do as nanny MOD thinks ORs will waste it. Lol

        • Try this for size

          RAF pilot does his contracted years.

          Gets divorced.

          Wife gets half his pension and the house.

          It is a tough one….

          Work for me for 5 years and you have £1.25M cash and I’ll give you free board.

          Or depend on my RAF pension….

          Let me see how that goes.

          Yes, it is totally wrong and I think criminal TBH. I don’t think there is nothing HMG can do about it. I’d be pretty sure of cross party support to an end OSA to prevent this. Loss of citizenship and being banned from USA would be a great start.

        • Even after leaving the military, you are still bound by the constraints stated within the official secrets act. So if they have been found to divulge information about weapon systems, avionics, aircraft performance or even tactics. The will found in contravention of the act and therefore punished. However, by then the information has already been handed over, so it’s damage limitation only.

          Unless the MoD and therefore the Government actually make a statement/act that bans ex-military cooperating with China. There’s nothing to stop them.

      • Not just the RAF or the UK. Pilots from across the Armed forces and the Western world are being recruited.

        Cheers CR

    • Relatively small amounts of money buy quite a lot of power in UK universities.

      All you need to do is to suck up to the powerful academics and they are so narrow minded about their pet research that they do the rest for CCP.

      • That’s how our current chancellor’s wife got started. Our legislative chambers are overrun with foreigners, dual nationals and assorted traitors.

    • It was the lead article on the BBC News website. So I think might just be you being anti-BBC.

      The BBC have also been one of the first to report on the ex-RAF pilots working for the PLA (traitors, all of them).

      • It was on the news bulletin last night & on BBC red button text but soon disappeared. British ex-RAF working for the PLA is jaw dropping.

        • I hope these guys can sleep at night. Teaching these Chinese pilots how to beat the former comrades and colleagues in the air. Still, if you got a mattress stuffed with 250k worth of Chinese Yuan that makes for an awfully comfortable mattress.

          • I wonder if these fella’s will actually get “named and shamed” by the press? If true, it’s pretty disgusting and dishonourable behaviour. And they call themselves “British”. Maybe they should get their citizenship revoked, then we’ll see whose side they run to.

          • Even a blind man can see China’s global ambitions and long term aims, not just military but also food security such as fishing. What happens when they turn up in the North Atlantic with a 500 stong fishing fleet? Helping China get an edge (any Edge) now is going to cost the West down the road somehow. We need more public awarness to stop funding the China machine, not buying ‘Made in China’ goods is a start.

    • Absolutely I’ve been on about this for years – I believe they also dictate what articles/on-line their student have acecss to…He who pays the piper….

    • Back in the 60s, at the time of the “Cultural Revolution”, the Chinese embassy staff poured out of their embassy/consulate in Portland Place in Central London, and set about passers by and the police officers near by. It was a right punch up. I was a lad in London at the time, and I remember seeing the headlines referencing the Chinese using machetes. No one was badly hurt. So they have form for such misbehaviour; you can be sure that they had the go ahead from their higher-ups to cause such trouble, then and now.

        • You’re probably right. Although there is enough information out there in the public domain the great British public largely trundles along blinded by cheap goods, where in fact the majority is just cheap junk. I used to work on a team that deals with IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) Last year we intercepted over £77M of fake goods coming into the UK the very vast majority of it from China and we could have very easily surpassed that figure if we had, had more staff. The public of course only see a bargain but the damage it does to legitimate firms is big. What people really need is a proper wake up call to see what the PRC are doing. I know most on here are already wise to China, I just don’t get why the ordinary Joe on the street is so blind.

    • Indeed. And the consul-general himself doing some of the beating, so reported. A diplomat’s raison d’etre is to avoid conflict. Sounds to me like he should be expelled for actions not in keeping with his station at the very least. Prosecuted as an example if at all possible.

  6. An Atlas and a P8 for a yacht 1 person rescue??? Different if it was an emergency on a naval ship but that seems way over the top, and a very expensive use of scarce finance and resources.

    • So how much is a life worth..? And who chooses who lives and dies..?

      At sea there is a tradition that everyone responds with maximum effort to save life. It’s a good one that should never be compromised. Surely it is not all about money?

      Just asking.

      CR

      • Hear hear – having been rescued by the RNLI and also gone to the help of someone in distress it’s great that this tradition is upheld

        • If you haven’t seen Supportive Bloke’s post he sets out basics, you deploy what is needed.

          In more detail if the P8 cannot deploy the life rafts then that would explain why the Atlas has obviously been equipped with the specialist drop system for the life raft cannisters. Remember the P8 was an off the shelf buy so not necessarily built to meet the Uk’s full requiments – the US Navy has a much bigger maritime patrol capability then we do and there is also the US coast guard who undertake air sea rescue missions in the US.

          So there will be good reasons why this approach has been addopted by the RAF, it is a balance capaibilities / cost decision. Equipping the P8, which also has a relatively small bomb bay, with a life saving equipment drop system migh have been very expensive for something that might only get use a couple of times a year.

          Then you would have to take a P8 and its crew out of ASW ops for the specialist air sea rescue drop training. Dropping heavy kit close to people you are trying to help in adverse conditions will undoubtedly require extra training – its not quite the same as dropping a light weight torpedo with a homing capability in close proximity to a sub. Given the too small a number of P8’s we have I’d argue that is not a sensible use of their capabilities.

          Given that the Atlas crews train regularly in low level supply drops close to own troops they already have the basic skill set. They are already well trained to fulfill the mission.

          In short the true cost of any operation is paid long before you fly.

          So I’m not sure it is an over the top cost, rather it demonstrates best use of over stretched resources, .i.e. if we’d for the extra drop capabilities on the P8 we could have flown one aircraft.

          Cheers CR

      • Might have needed the P8 to find him and the Atlas to do the interaction?

        They might have been on exercise?

        Anyway it was good training for helping marines or RAF pilots in trouble.

        • Exactly. Real life providing a perfect opportunity for training, and training is preparation for RL. Nice feedback loop…🤔😁

    • What it was was a very good illustration of what can be done, and done live rather than as an exercise. There will be a lot of good training info being debriefed, particularly about how to coordinate different types of aircraft doing different jobs. And at the end there is one life saved.
      A good analogy would be to ask what do you do with a fireman when there isn’t a fire. The answer is they practice, quite a lot!

    • Why it is brilliant real life training for searching for downed aircrew and a lot more realistic than having someone dropped in pre defined location by a ship which they can use as starting point to find. I hope somebody is working out how to adpat/fit they rescue pack into P-8 bay, they are not much bigger than a MK-54

    • Look at it another way, its a useful exercise in rapid planning and execution of a mission that has genuine consequences if done badly.

      Arguably more useful than some of the military exercises that take place and are planned to minute detail in advance without time pressure.

  8. It would be nice to keep one or two C-130 for this sort of mission and help serve the outer islands when needed. Although, I’ve always wanted to see the C-27 in the RAF.

    • Don’t be surprised if this contract goes abroad, with the UK getting some assembly type work. Despite what that article says, we are not in a position to build said ships without substantial overseas assistance, we simply don’t have the skilled workforce to design and build them.

      • Agree. My money is on the Navantia – Harland and Wolff tie up. If you are naming RN ships HMS Belfast you need to keep NI in the UK.

        • Yes there is a lot of ‘noise’ surrounding the Navantia bid, whether that makes them favourite or not remains to be seen. Although I imagine that they must be a strong contender for winning the contract. Believe we should know by March at the latest, unless that gets pushed right due to current financial situation!

          • Same old story. Well over budget.

            So do we pay for British built and what else gets cut in the meantime?

          • Yep, same story. How much is it worth to rebuild lost skills? We did it with the Astute class and the River 2s > Clyde Type 26. The Navantia deal looks politically attractive: regain at least ship assembly skills and create jobs in NI.

          • That was my other thought. I’m not up to speed with shipbuilding at all, but do we even have a yard free to build them in their entirely ? I thought not.

          • Dunno really. Like you I thought not so. I guess you would have to delve into the detail of the bids, particularly the Team UK bid, which I assume must contain some proposal for renovating shipbuilding facilities.

          • Yes, Belfast. The building dock is big enough to build two of these at the same time. Harland & Wolff also has fabrication facilities at Methil and Arnish and owns Appledore which built block sections for the carriers.
            H&W would learn a lot from Navantia but if the contract goes to BAe/Babcock it will benefit as a subcontractor on that team too.
            There is actually a very sensible National Shipbuilding Strategy which aims to provide certainty of orders in the longer term and rebuild skills and expertise in UK shipbuilding.

          • Thanks for that Richard. So the infrastructure exists. But not necessarily the skills or an existing effective workforce for final assembly at one site? I knew about the block sections previously so that parts fine.

            It concerns me that we throw good money after bad in ships years late again because they lack the efficiency and knowhow to do the build without outside help.

            The loss of skills in the 1st instance is criminal. Who oversaw it? Who is responsible?

  10. The A400 had to do the ASRA drop because the P8A isn’t cleared for it yet. Once the P8A has full operational capability, it will be able to carry out such missions alone.

  13. If a P8 cannot drop a life raft and support cylinders the RAF really have gone backwards – the Shackleton and Nimrod could do it automatically via pilot/navigator controls rather than the Heath Robinson arrangement in the back of an A400 using a man on a tether which will be prone to timing (of release) errors as it looks a completely manual operation which affects the chance of success of straddling the downwind track of the vessel in difficulty.

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