1087/2024 Missing Person
10/07/2024
The Service was called out by Guernsey Coastguard on behalf of Guernsey Police to search for a missing person in the vicinity of Pleinmont. The specific tasking was to search the Pleinmont headland, the Motocross track, and the cliffs, especially the bases of the cliffs. The Service's aircraft Lions' Pride departed from Guernsey's westerly runway at 1940hrs and arrived on scene 5 minutes later. A series of orbits were flown based on two datum points and a series of sweeps of the cliffs were flown between La Prevoté and Fort Pezeries. Visibility was good, although the late evening sun proved challenging when flying westerly legs. The orbits and cliff sweeps were flown at differing altitudes of between 500 and 1000 feet and at varying distances from the datums to maximise the chances of identifying the missing person - searching visually and with the FLIR camera. It was a warm sunny evening and consequently there were numerous members of the public out walking who had to be discounted. Two possible contacts who appeared to be behaving 'unusually' were investigated - one in the vicinity of the flag pole above Portelet and another not far away in the pine trees overlooking the bay. It was determined these were bird watchers. Given our search area in relation to the Runway 27 climb out, Guernsey Air Traffic Control were very accommodating, only asking us to break off from our search operation twice to facilitate commercial departures. At 2045hrs Guernsey Coastguard informed us that Guernsey Police were content with our search coverage and had requested us to stand down. After routing clockwise round the island, Lions' Pride landed back on the westerly runway at 2055hrs and after refuelling was made ready for the next service