Ladies take control for Search and Rescue debut

LAST Friday saw the Shannon based Search And Rescue Helicopter fly its first missions while the aircraft had both a female pilot and co-pilot.

The women in question were Captain Dara Fitzpatrick and Captain Carmel Kirby.

Captain Fitzpatrick is based in Waterford and was on transfer to Shannon to build up flying hours on the Sikorski S92 helicopter, which is due to replace the S61 in Waterford next month.

Captain Kirby is scheduled to become the manager flight operations for all the helicopter search and rescue bases later this year.

It was a historic occasion for the Coast Guard and the women carried out two missions on their shift. One of these was a cardiac case in West Cork, who was brought to Cork University Hospital, and the second was an aero-medical transfer from Cork University Hospital to Temple Street of a critically ill five year old child.

Coast Guard statistics show a 45% rise in the number of incidents to 1,572 missions by the end of July. The annual number of Coast Guard incidents attended has never gone over 2,000 in its history but that figure is set to be exceeded before the end of the autumn this year. Already this year there have been 187 missions from Shannon, an increase of 85% on this time last year.