Episode 4 Helicopter Rescue

The mountains and coastline of Wales,

both beautiful and treacherous.

The iconic yellow Sea King helicopters rescue

hundreds of people every year.

In Wales, the RAF Search and Rescue Force is the busiest in Britain.

In this series, we follow real rescue stories

from mountainside to hospital bedside.

Our cameras have unprecedented access to the life-saving work

of the Sea King crews.

Even with a royal pilot in its ranks,

it's business as usual for RAF Search and Rescue.

This time on Helicopter Rescue,

the Sea King faces its toughest challenge yet.

Four young climbers have been stuck for six hours

in freezing conditions.

We're here now. Let's get them and let's get out of there.

The Sea King is summoned to Caernarfon Castle -

a tourist is trapped in one of the towers.

We were initially thinking, "How are we going to get in here?"

And probably there's going to be a vast amount of people that

are going to be on walls and on turrets and things like that.

And the RAF says goodbye to one of its captains

in traditional Search and Rescue style.

He'll be missed a little bit. Not that much. No.

Of course he'll be missed. He's been a great guy. He's very experienced.

For the past 60 years,

Search and Rescue helicopters have been flying the skies above Wales.

These life-saving aircraft have rescued

thousands of people in the Welsh mountains and seas.

On 24th September 1975,

the AgustaWestland Sea Kings Mark 3 came into service.

35 years on, she still commands the respect of all who fly in her.

She's an old aircraft, but she does everything that we want of her.

She's a lovely old dear.

She's been around a long time.

You've got to be very gentle with her, but equally,

she can take a lot of stick.

Wherever you put her, she will adapt and she will deal with it.

I have so much respect for her.

Certain blokes have love affairs with cars, I think.

Some aircrew have love affairs with the Sea King.

Yes, it is getting a bit old and it doesn't have long left, but I'm sure

the people that have been

rescued by it over the years will be forever grateful for its abilities.

Snowdonia. It's familiar stomping ground for the Sea King.

Today, a Sea King from RAF Valley responds to

a call for help from the mountains.

The casualty is on Crib Goch.

This is Rescue 122. We are arriving on the scene. Over.

One of Snowdonia's most dangerous mountains

has claimed another victim.

Rescue 122 has been called to Crib Goch,

a 3,000ft-high ridge leading to the summit of Snowdon.

It's territory that's very familiar to radar operator

Squadron Leader Dave Taylor.

Some of the issues with Crib Goch is there's a steep drop either side.

The consequences of getting it wrong are quite severe.

The actual environment there,

the rocks and things like that, it's not going to be a nice area.

People quite often take tumbles,

because it's a severe slope that won't hold people.

A 10ft fall might end up in a 30 or 40ft tumble.

And the injuries there can be quite severe from that.

Down low, 3 o'clock. A group.

-One of them is definitely in a red jacket.

-I can see someone.

They've spotted the casualty.

Five people are perched on the ridge of Crib Goch

with a 1,000ft drop below them.

One of them has a suspected broken ankle.

On their mobile phones, they film the Sea King arrive.

In such a hostile place, the helicopter has no place to land.

The only option is to use the Sea King's winch.

Radar operator Dave now needs to manoeuvre winchman Dave McDowell

down to the casualty.

It's a tricky operation on Crib Goch's steep slopes.

Your concern, as a winch operator, for the winchman is paramount

in terms of where you're going to place him

and whether he can actually come off the hook at that stage.

You're looking at a very, very steep area.

You don't want to just put the winchman on a place,

he comes off the hook and then he falls himself, and becomes a casualty.

The Sea King is uniquely designed to be almost stationary

in the air during a rescue operation.

Buffeted by strong winds, over 3,000ft in the air,

the helicopter's powerful engines make sure the aircraft

hardly moves during the hover.

From this stable platform, the crew can place the winchman

with pinpoint accuracy on the slopes below.

Hi, guys, all right?

I'll be very careful not to stand on your foot.

David Bland from Northamptonshire is in severe pain.

He tripped and fell on his way down from the summit of Snowdon.

That's it. Righto.

Push it to the side, under his knee, under his knee. That's it.

Winchman Dave McDowell suspects he has a broken ankle

and tries to give him morphine. But it's so cold, he can't find a vein.

Let's have a look for that pump.

He needs to get this casualty on board the helicopter quickly

to help control his pain.

It's a precarious spot, and too dangerous to use a stretcher.

Bring it together a little bit closer.

Dave McDowell straps him firmly into the harness,

and the Sea King winches him on board.

David Bland is on his way to Bangor's Ysbyty Gwynedd.

That's literally torn it.

His friends will continue their journey down the mountain by foot.

They're brilliant things, aren't they?

On board, the gas and air helps to ease his pain.

It's at times like these that a radar operator's job is not

just about working the winch. A little TLC goes a long way.

'I call it "bedside manner".'

It's reaching out to that person and making them feel comfortable,

make them smile a little bit, perhaps,

'and try and forget the issue that they've had.'

X-rays later show that David Bland had broken both his tibia

and fibula in his leg. After surgery,

he was discharged from Bangor Hospital three days later.

Back on base, and it's time for the Sea King to have a health check.

We've got a fleet of engineers who work pretty tirelessly

to keep these things going.

I've got it, I've got it!

The engineers do a fantastic job of keeping her airborne.

The maintenance work they do is essential,

and they do a fantastic job of keeping us flying.

Fewer callouts at night mean the engineers have time to work

on the five Sea Kings in the hangar.

All the aircraft components have a lifespan based on

the number of hours flown.

From gearboxes to rivets, everything is checked.

Yeah, it is late hours, early hours of the morning.

When it gets to witching hour, 3 o'clock, it does get tiring.

It's quite nice being involved as well,

thinking that you do actually help somebody that needs the service.

Sometimes the smallest piece of equipment can mean

the difference between life and death on a rescue.

All the specialist gear used by the crews

is cared for by the survival equipment fitters,

or the "squippers" for short.

The majority of the work is caused by the Mark 4 rescue harness,

which the winchman sits in when he gets winched down on the winch.

He puts his legs through the bottom loops...

..which are attached to the winch via a carabiner,

but it's called a single-point-of-contact carabiner,

which has been tested purely for winch work.

It's not used for anything else. It's used purely for the winchman.

A tiny piece of kit like that, that's probably, out of all

the equipment, that gets lovingly taken care of the most.

It gets washed in disinfectant,

whereas the rest are just cleaned in water.

Without the engineers working here,

everybody who works with us as part of the team,

the aircraft would never get off the ground.

And I think the aircrew appreciate that.

All the aircraft have been serviced and are all ready to go.

The Sea King is equipped to deal with most of the challenges posed

by the Welsh landscape, and it's not just on mountains and coastline.

It can be called to the most unexpected places.

Another day, another castle, and this time it's Caernarfon.

A mediaeval fortress can prove treacherous to modern-day tourists.

Rescue 122 is called out to a damsel in distress

in one of the turrets at Caernarfon Castle.

If it's what it sounds like, it should be a quick, easy job.

-You never know.

-You never know.

There she is.

On their mobile phones,

the tourists capture the unfolding drama at the castle.

The police and the other emergency services are already on the scene.

A 57-year-old woman has slipped down a spiral staircase

in one of the towers.

It's too dangerous to take her back down to the waiting ambulance,

so the Sea King is called.

Radar operator on the rescue is Graeme Livingston.

It was one of those jobs where it would have been

five, six, seven hours to extract her down the stairs,

but the risks made sense

that we would get her on board the aircraft and get her to hospital.

I think I can see the casualty.

These are all the firemen and the people down there.

She's lying on the walkway on a stretcher.

The nine-ton helicopter has to carefully manoeuvre around

the high turrets and steep castle walls to reach the casualty.

But that's not the only problem.

We were initially thinking, "How are we going to get in here?"

And probably there's going to be a vast amount of people

that are going to be on walls and on turrets and things like that.

The Sea King is one of the biggest aircraft

in the RAF's fleet of helicopters.

Due to its size, it's creating

a 30mph-strong downdraught from its blades.

The tourists on the narrow parapets are now in danger.

There's an old person in red jacket who needs to move out of the way.

I'll gesticulate in a second.

'It's very difficult to actually tie in where we're going'

to have to actually sit to carry out the rescue.

And then have a risk assessment of how many people or where

they are in proximity to that column of air,

'because it's gale force, and it can knock people off their feet.'

The area that we're going to put Bestie on is at the close end,

low 2 o'clock, this side of the main gate.

With the area cleared, the winchman is lowered down to the casualty.

Over the side. Steady.

Clear of the harness. Winching to the area.

Steady. Steady.

'The pilot is working hard to maintain the hover.

'I'm continually telling him, even if we don't have to move,

'if we're in a good area, then I'll continually be telling him,'

"Steady, steady, steady," in a nice calm manner.

But I'm also looking around all the time, making sure

we haven't sunk towards the castle, that the tail

hasn't moved towards any of the turrets and things like that.

Steady.

Casualty on. Winchman on. Winchman in.

Clear of the ground.

With a suspected broken ankle,

the casualty is winched to the safety of the Sea King.

Next stop is the local hospital,

only a few minutes' flight away at Bangor.

I think the main thing about the Sea King and the Search and Rescue Force

is really the flexibility and the diversity of the aircraft.

It's a large platform but we can really squeeze it

into some pretty small places.

And then we just fly away from the area, job done.

The RAF Search and Rescue Force has 12 Sea Kings at its disposal,

always on standby to answer a cry for help.

Hundreds of pilots have earned their wings flying the iconic aircraft.

It's been a reliable, reliable helicopter

in my time with it,

and it's got me out of some fairly hairy situations.

It's got me into them as well, but it's got me out again,

so I can't complain too much.

As an experienced Search and Rescue captain,

Flight Lieutenant Dave Prochera-Best often mentors other pilots.

Today, he's on a training exercise in Snowdonia

with Flight Lieutenant William Wales

who qualified as a captain six months ago.

There's a number of guys who've been extremely good

and given up their time for me

and helped pass on experience and knowledge from more senior pilots.

I've been really fortunate that I have been able to provide

the benefit of my experience to some of the more junior captains.

From being a co-pilot who is all over his role,

you suddenly jump into very big shoes where it's your call,

life and death, not only for the crew, but also for the casualty.

So you do make some pretty big calls,

and that dawned on me pretty quick after doing it.

The training is built towards that

so it's not such a big leap when you finally get captaincy.

He's come from a very strong background where

decision-making is his forte, and I think compared to

other junior captains, that part was never an issue for him.

He's also blessed with a decent pair of hands for flying as well,

so the amount of work that he puts in

and his background in decision-making makes him

a pretty strong captain, and he was a good candidate all along.

After 17 years of service, Dave is to hang up his helmet

and leave his job.

He's emigrating to Canada to fly Search and Rescue helicopters

with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

My wife and I have always wanted to work abroad and see

more of the world. To be offered the opportunity to carry on

Search and Rescue that's so closely aligned to what I do already -

they even have yellow helicopters, which is a huge boon -

was just too much of an opportunity to miss.

On his final shift, the crew bid farewell

in the typical Search and Rescue tradition.

Interestingly enough, and rather amusingly, he forgot to ask

how long some of their search jobs are, and we found out from

the commanding officer that a search of about two weeks

is sometimes normal. So he's going to enjoy that.

'He'll have a great time there. He's been a great guy. He's very experienced.'

THEY CHEER

HE MUTTERS

Back at the RAF family quarters in Valley,

Dave and wife Jennine prepare for their big move.

Search and Rescue has been a big part of their lives,

with its highs and lows.

When you hear the helicopter go in the middle of the night,

-that's a bit worrying, but I'd rather know the truth.

-Yeah.

-Warts and all.

Because then you can appreciate it.

I know I'm not in that situation,

but I would always encourage you to tell me as much as you could.

And there's one particular rescue that brought the couple closer together.

We'd come off a particularly hairy rescue.

I'd not been doing it very long,

and as a result of saving this ice climber,

we ended up going into cloud in the Devil's Kitchen,

in icing, and eventually the helicopter iced up

and fell out of the sky without us able to do anything at all, really.

As the helicopter fell from the sky,

the Sea King sent out this dramatic Mayday message.

-RECORDING:

-'Mayday, Mayday.

'This is Rescue 122. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.'

I honestly thought, "We're about to die."

That's the closest I've been.

'Heavy icing. Heavy icing. Uncontrolled descent.'

Fortunately, we fell out of the cloud

and the ice cleared before we hit the ground,

and we managed to get ourselves to Bangor Hospital and shut down.

It was pretty traumatic for everyone,

and my first thought was to phone Jennine.

It wasn't a phone call that you relish receiving.

-Unpleasant.

-Yeah, absolutely.

Not one you ever want to sort of receive on a regular basis,

or worse for that matter.

After difficult rescues,

the crews often turn to their loved ones for support.

On his latest rescue, winchman Ed Griffiths had to turn

to his wife after a particularly dangerous operation.

I waited till we got back to the base,

then I phoned home straightaway.

"Just done another scary one." And my wife, as she always says,

she goes, "Oh, God. What have you done this time?!"

It was one of the trickier ones that I've done here.

Rescue 122 has been called to one of the most infamous mountains

in the Ogwen Valley -

Tryfan.

It's a daunting challenge for the Sea King,

because snow and ice are major hazards for the helicopter.

Up there, because the snow had been falling, it was icy conditions,

so there was ice with fresh snow packed on top,

and conditions underfoot were quite slippery and these four guys

had quite sensibly clipped themselves onto the side of the mountain.

It's 10 o'clock at night.

The Sea King's powerful searchlight reveals four lost climbers

on the steep rock face.

The young students from Liverpool University

have been stranded for six hours.

They're not injured.

But the atrocious weather means the Sea King is struggling.

The crew have to decide if they're able to carry on with the rescue.

The problems that we were facing, the reasons why we were

considering aborting the rescue, were, first of all,

the cloud that was coming down, so we thought we may enter into cloud,

and we didn't have the option of escaping through the cloud,

because the helicopter would have just frozen up and potentially,

in the worst case, dropped out of the sky.

'We were in heavy snow, so the visibility was being reduced,

'and also we have limits, because what can happen is the air that

'goes into the engines, those intakes can get clogged up with snow,

'so we have time limits that we can fly in those snowy conditions,

'so all these things we were weighing up at the time

'and trying to get the balance right, risk versus reward.'

I think if you tuck in a little bit closer,

the rope will not affect them...

The crew decide it's an acceptable risk and carry on with the rescue.

They've come up with an escape plan.

By increasing their altitude, the helicopter can fly away safely

if the rescue becomes too dangerous.

But that means that winchman Ed now has to be lowered down

150 feet to rescue the stranded climbers.

'It can be scary, and essentially, you do get scared at times.'

You think, "I wish I wasn't here, I wish I was at home."

Ed reaches the four stranded climbers.

He sends the first two up on the winch

while he stays on the rockface with the other two.

The first two climbers reach the safety of the Sea King,

but now the weather has deteriorated even further.

In blizzard conditions,

the Sea King's spotlight is being reflected by the snow.

The pilot is flying blind.

At that point, the weather got bad again.

The pilot lost the escape at that point.

We're in downdraughting air, we're in turbulent air,

so we're pulling a lot of power, but because our escape's gone,

the safer place to be at that point is sticking with the cliffs.

'Certainly for me, as the rad-op, when we're that close to the cliffs

'and we're in turbulent air,'

it does concentrate the mind somewhat and get the heart rate going.

"We're here now, let's get them and let's get out of there."

Rescue 122 has to leave as soon as it can.

The pilot contacts Ed over the radio.

If you want to drop these lads off, I'm happy to wait here.

Happy to pick you up, Ed.

To save time, they'll winch up three people at once.

-Do you want a triple?

-Yeah.

-There's these lads and me.

-Triple.

-OK, if you're happy, I'll leave the bags.

-Yeah, defo.

It's only in extreme rescues such as this one

that a triple winch is ever attempted.

'The hoist is proved to lift 600lbs, so that's our limit.'

I know, unfortunately, because I've weighed myself on the scales,

that I'm a little bit heavier than 200lbs,

so I weigh about 240, 250lbs in all my kit.

I'm also faced with two adult guys who also have their kit.

We're very close to that 600lb limit.

'So we left the bags behind, clipped all three of us on,

'just to expedite the rescue,'

and we did a triple lift,

which we only use in extremis, when we need to just get out of there.

On a steel wire no thicker than a pencil,

Ed and the two survivors are winched up to the Sea King.

A technical problem with the aircraft at that point is almost unthinkable.

It would be really tricky to recover from something like that,

so you have got to trust our engineers.

We've got a great set of engineers who maintain the aircraft.

Every now and again, there's a little element of crossing fingers,

but I trust the winch, I trust the kit and I trust the crew.

'So when it's all over, there is that massive sense of relief,

'and you do get that sort of cathartic effect that'

you've achieved something, a sense of well-being.

At last, the Sea King can fly away with four grateful survivors

and a very relieved winchman on board.

-Just to confirm, we've got four then, yeah?

-We have.

The Sea King lands at the Ogwen Mountain Rescue Base

where the four university students warm up and are fed.

Back at RAF Valley, Ed's first thought is to call home.

And I usually at that point phone home as well, just to have a chat.

I get told off by her for doing scary jobs. But she's used to it.

Once again, the Sea King has proved

it really is the ultimate search and rescue machine.

It has its quirks. You know, it breaks fairly often,

it needs a lot of engineering,

but it kind of makes you fall in love with it more,

because it's got character, so yeah,

it's a fantastic aircraft to work on.

I love it - absolutely love it.

After 30 years of service,

it's now time for the AgustaWestland Sea King to retire.

In 2016, the Sea King will be replaced by a more modern helicopter,

under plans for a new Search and Rescue service

which won't involve the RAF.

It's the end of an era for the iconic yellow helicopter.

It's not flashy. It's not the sports car of the helicopter world.

It's the broken-down old minivan, but it's got all the tools you need

in it, and it's always there when you require it.

She's very old now. She's been around a very long time.

She's been a fantastic servant to everyone.

There won't be any more yellow Sea Kings flying around,

which for me personally, emotively, it's very sad to see her go.

She's been, like I said, a fantastic servant,

and it just focuses the mind a bit

when you think you may never see that yellow Sea King again.

The thing that makes it most capable, though,

is the aircrew and engineers that fly it.

# Some day you might find your hero

# Some say you might lose your mind

# I'm keeping my head down now for the summer

# I'm out of my mind but pour me another

# I'm going to take that tiger outside for a ride... #

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