Privitisation of S.A.R?

[Oddball]

Just heard on the news that the Search And Rescue helicopter operations run by the R.A.F and the Royal Navy (and maybe Coast Guard)  could be put into private hands. I'm sure if this happens they would fall under civil conditions and be limited to what meteorological conditions they could fly in. would they charge for the call outs? I know that if the call out is unnecessary you could be charged for the cost of the helicopter and I always contribute some thing towards some of the Mountian Rescue Teams and the R.A.F teams if I see a charity box.  But how would this vital service operate in private hands? (if this makes no sense sorry got a bit of a bad head cold just now  )

[Frank N. O.]

That sounds insane, that would never happen here, and we have privatised many formerly publically owned areas, telephone, city busses, elderly care etc. We have however a long track record for private companies assisting with ambulances and firefighting, well actually just one company, Falck, now a couple of other companies have started bidding on ambulance services.

UK has just as big a use for SAR as DK doesn't it? How do they plan on making that work?

Frank

[Fabo]

I am not sure about specifically SAR, but we here in Slovakia have since long had privatised air ambulance and it works pretty well.

[Frank N. O.]

Do air ambulances in the rest of European do the same kind of work as British and Scandinavian Search-And-Rescue?

Frank

[4X-NTY]

Until few years ago,the IAF was in control on the S.A.R operations,they would usually send an S-70 or a CH-53 to do the job. now there is a company which I don't remember it's name that operating a Bolkow as an air ambulance,if the patient was in a bad condition but the IAF didn't send an helicopter,he would be driven in an ambulance to the nearest parking lot,and from there the Bolkow would fly him to the hospital. I watched some operations of it.
Now the company isn't operating anymore becuase the insurance companies refused to pay for the flight because of some stupid excuses like "the patient didn't asked for it" and "the patient didn't need the air-ambulance" and the company decided to stop it's flight. When they did fly they would get priority over other aircrafts,special permissions and were limited only to what the helicopter can take, and not what the law says.

[Lt.Fubar]

Oddball relax, the whole program is under the Maritime and Coastguard Agency - they pay the chosen private company to do the SAR work, the same way it is done in Ireland for years. Right now part of the SAR missions are run by CHC using S-92s and AW-139s, as a proof of concept, and they are working good so far. Although there were some issues at the beginning because of the new machines used (it took some time until the S-92s got their aux tanks, and the AWs got higher gross weight provisions + the searchlight placement on those is less than optimal). Not to worry though, the government pay company to do the work, so you don't have to pay more than in your taxes.

Civilian aviation SAR work in Ireland, New Zealand (Westpac), South Africa, Switzerland (REGA), Poland (TOPR), and few others.