Lookout

A Faded Yellow Memory
Overhead Bamburgh Castle
As the old saying goes, ‘All good things must come to
an end’. And as the hangar doors close for the last
time, everyone here at A Flight, 202 Squadron has
been reflecting on what a good thing we had. We had a
good job; a great job. A job that was fun, challenging,
rewarding and yes, occasionally terrifying. It was a job which we felt
privileged to do and it was made all the easier because we provided
the service to a community which took us to their hearts.
By Squadron Leader Iain Macfarlane
For 51 years, yellow helicopters
emblazoned with the words ‘Royal
Air Force Rescue’ and using the
callsign ‘Rescue 131’ patrolled the
seas, coastlines and mountains of
Northern England and Southern
Scotland. Initially operating from
RAF Acklington and, since 1975,
RAF Boulmer, these helicopters
have been responsible for saving
many hundreds of lives. The
ageing Whirlwind aircraft were
replaced in 1978 with the - then
state-of-the-art - Sea King, which
itself has now quietly retired to
pastures new.
The team briefed
together on a
daily basis
Obviously, the crews who operated,
engineered and supported these
helicopters changed many times
over the years (although there
were one or two individuals
present at the end who looked
old enough to have been there
when it all started). Although
the individuals, the uniforms and
the facial hair changed over the
decades, many things remained
constant. Everyone remained
focussed towards making a
difference; towards going the
extra mile to make sure that
rescues were conducted as quickly,
efficiently and
safely as possible.
When asked
to participate
in a military
operation, most
commanders
have the luxury
of selecting
and preparing
their most
experienced
people for the
task, but that
was far from
the case in the
Search and Rescue world. Because
of the unpredictable nature of our
operations, a young pilot, radar
operator or winchman could be
tasked to the most difficult rescue
operation ever attempted on
their very first shift. We minimized
this risk by intensive training
and the careful composition of
crews, but nonetheless, some
very inexperienced aircrew were
‘thrown in at the deep end’ over
the years and invariably they
performed magnificently.
Our 24 hour shifts began at 9:20
am every day of the year and were
utterly unpredictable (except for
the amount of tea consumed; that
was very predictable). Some days
were quiet and our only flying
activity was a bit of training to
keep our skills honed; other days
were manic with multiple rescues
to conduct. No matter how many
rescues we had done, the scramble
phone made us jump every time.
Just a little jump during the day -
no more than a start, really - and
an enormous, adrenaline-filled,
star jump at 3 am when we were
all tucked up in bed. Most of our
A few of the ‘A’ team!
rescues passed unnoticed by the
wider world, but there were some
prominent examples which are
worth remembering.
In March 1980, Rescue 131 was
involved in the rescue of 38
Norwegian oil workers from the
‘Alexander Keilland’ platform which
capsized in a North Sea gale.
In July 1988, Rescue 131 was
one of many rescue helicopters
tasked to assist the ‘Piper Alpha’ oil
platform which was destroyed by
an explosion and subsequent fire
in the North Sea. Rescue 131 had
to carefully pick its way through
the burning sea to search for oil
workers who had jumped into
the inferno.
Five months later, in December
1988, Rescue 131 was one of the
first rescue assets to arrive at the
devastating scene of a Pan Am
Boeing 747 crash onto the town
of Lockerbie. When it became
clear that there were no survivors
among the passengers and crew,
Rescue 131 became instrumental in