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Scotland & NI 098/01
30 January 2001
FIRST CALL-OUT FAILS FOR REVAMPED COASTGUARD
By Iain Grant
Aberdeen Coastguard has admitted to a communications
breakdown in its first attempted call-out of Wick lifeboat since last
month's closure of the Pentland Firth station at Kirkwall.
The glitch occurred as they responded to a reported sighting of red
distress flares off the east coast of Sutherland at the weekend.
Station officers sought to mobilise the lifeboat, but were unable to
get in touch with the official in charge of launching the rescue
craft.
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Coastguard Watchroom Officer
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After a nine-minute delay, it was decided to contact the lifeboat
station at Invergordon whose crew set off in pursuit of what proved
either a bogus call or a false alarm with good intent.
The stretch of coastline off Caithness, Orkney and north and east
Sutherland, previously covered by Pentland, is now the responsibility
of the stations at Aberdeen and Lerwick.
The gremlin has been seized on by those who unsuccessfully campaigned
against the closure of the Kirkwall base.
The alert was triggered when several youngsters called in at the
coastguard hut at Helmsdale and reported having seen red flares out at
sea.
Aberdeen Coastguard watch manager Jim Dickson yesterday accepted there
had been a communications problem within the station as it responded
to Saturday night's incident.
However, he stressed that, had Wick lifeboat been required for an
emergency where lives were at risk, the crew would have been scrambled
by paging them directly.
Robert Maclennon |
Caithness, Sutherland
and Easter Ross MP, Robert Maclennan, said yesterday: "It
appears the system did not work as it was intended.
"It's obviously of concern, particularly to those of us who
warned that the transfer of responsibility to Aberdeen could lead
to incidents of this kind.
"It's another example of the
problems you get with centralising services away from the local
area ." |
Mr. Maclennan said he would be contacting the Maritime and Coastguard
Agency to seek assurances that there would be no repetition.
Mr. Dickson, who was off-duty at the weekend, said the communications
breakdown at the Aberdeen station meant the officer in charge of
launching the Wick lifeboat could not be contacted immediately after
the report was received at 9.30pm on Saturday.
With the delay and the report that the vessel from which the flares
were allegedly seen was said to be heading south, it was decided to
call out the Invergordon lifeboat, together with the auxiliary
coastguard teams at Helmsdale and Dornoch.
He explained: "There was a minor procedural error in our
operations room in the way information was entered into our system. A
message hadn't been passed across correctly".
"It's been looked at and fingers have been rapped. The whole
thing has now been resolved."
Mr. Dickson made clear that the error had never affected the service's
ability to respond immediately to an incident involving direct danger
to life.
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Wick lifeboat
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Ian Cormack, coxswain of Wick Lifeboat, said yesterday: "We've
spoken with Aberdeen and we're happy that the problem is not going to
happen again.
"It's a disappointing thing to happen, especially as it was the
first call-out we had received since the transfer. Luckily, on this
occasion, it was a false alarm and we're hoping lessons have been
learned."
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| Maurice
Storey, Coastguard chief executive claimed that the
closure of Oban and Pentland stations, following the
re-equipping of four others, has been completed
successfully.
see
story» |
Mr. Storey
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