Rescue report reveals resource problems
RCIPS Joint Marine Unit and Panga boat that had been lost at sea
(CNS): Personnel shortages and equipment problems for the RCIPS Air Support and Joint Marine units were all identified in a report by a coastguard expert made public yesterday. The search and rescue (SAR) operation conducted by the RCIPS in March following a report that five people, including two children, were missing at sea, was reviewed by Andy Jenkins, a commander with the UK’s Maritime Coastguard. His report highlighted the limitations but confirmed that the officers had acted correctly in their response, given all of the circumstances.
In the report, which is now a public document, Jenkins pointed to the catalogue of issues that combined to prevent the helicopter and the JMU launching a rescue mission following the first report, made at midnight by a family member, that two children and their uncle had not returned from a fishing trip.
Jenkins noted the limitations of resources, including the fact that there is only one pilot available for the helicopter and the JMU has manpower problems, with only 14 current staff out of 37 positions available to perform all duties, such as customs, SAR and immigration.
“This can be a challenge to provide crews to deploy especially in protracted incidents where crews returning from a mission will require sufficient downtime to recover,” Jenkins warned. “Any type of search is extremely tiring.”
In addition to staffing challenges, equipment was highlighted as a problem. The JMU vessel, Cayman Guardian, has an issue with a leaking fuel tank, leaving crews to contend with a very strong and often nauseous smell of diesel when they are at their lookout positions in the upper part of the vessel. The forward looking infrared system (FLIR) fitted to it was defective and had been for some time, and the radar system was also described as ineffective.
“These defects should, if possible, be rectified to ensure that when crews put to sea they have the very best chance of a successful mission. A second vessel, which is highly rated by the crew as being a stable and good search platform, currently sits alongside and was reported as having sufficient defects to restrict its operation,” Jenkins noted.
According to the report, the police were given very little information at the outset about the missing group.
“Neither of the parents were able to give a description of what the boys were wearing or a name or description of the boat they were on,” Jenkins stated in the report. However, the boys’ parents indicated that they had heard through local fishermen that Gary Mullings and the two children were with two other people, which later turned out to be Edsell Haylock and Nicholas Watler.
“Due to lack of information, the search area and potential datum had not been defined at this stage and indeed a vague position at 12 Mile Bank sometime earlier in the day was not considered good enough to deploy to in the conditions with the probability of detection likely to be extremely low,” Jenkins wrote.
The UK expert found that the decisions not to deploy the police helicopter or the Cayman Guardian during darkness were taken based on sound reasoning by experienced duty operational officers at both Air Support Unit (ASU) and JMU.
“For the air unit the lack of moonlight and the worsening weather conditions which they had witnessed first-hand the previous night when the crew had declared that it simply was not safe to fly in the darkness with no visual reference in conjunction with flying against regulations and the issue of reduced hours available. Safety of the SAR crews should always be of paramount importance, considered and weighed up against the likely chance of a successful outcome,” he added.
But he also reported that the crews had made it clear that had even an approximate position for the boat been known within safe travel distances, there would have been further conversations regarding a launch, despite the potential risks to crew.
Jenkins also examined the mix-up over the reports of flares and found that all were properly investigated. But he made it clear that 911 staff should not jump to conclusions and make sure every report is treated separately before making a judgement call.
He said the helicopter responded to the first report of a red flare in the Rum Point area at 6:33pm with the Joint Marine Unit and spotted a second as they were airborne. Seeing two vessels near to the source of the flares as the chopper approached, the boats depart in different directions. The JMU located one of the vessels near Governor’s Creek and spoke with the occupants, who said the flare was fired from the second vessel but that was not in distress and they knew nothing further.
Jenkins explained that at 7pm another flare report was received via the emergency 911 service from a member of the public. The caller saw the flare from North West Point.
“The 911 call handler believing the call to be the same as that in the Rum Point area thanked the caller and closed down the call. She then communicated this report to the police aircraft, which was still hovering in a position around Governor’s Creek. The aircraft captain, upon receiving this new report, was able to confirm that a flare on the west side of the island was a different one to that reported earlier.”
The 911 operator called back the informant and officers were dispatched to speak to him and the information was passed to the Air Support Unit, which began a search of the area using their FLIR camera. By this time, the sea was rough and moonlight insufficient. The captain of the aircraft said that when they were four miles offshore, he felt it was too dangerous to continue but as he flew back to shore he continued to make sweeps with their FLIR camera.
Category: Local News, Police
Well this is one for all you survival experts giving your idiotic advice and predictions on this blog Please read William Durden rescue yesterday age 61 who fell overboard in rough seas in the Gulf of Mexico for 20 hours 20 hours. Mr Durden is a EX navy pilot which drives the point home EXPERIENCE which is seriously lacking in the JMU.
CNS, maybe you could again link the report to this article – too few people seem to have actually read it. Rather than exonerating, I think it was very damning of the CoP’s management of the JMU and ACU under his command and his decisions while in that post. Yes the RCIPS staff (to the extend there is staff) did a good job with what they had, but the report revealed that Cayman has virtually no nocturnal offshore capability. Why are people so jubilant with the revelation of that shocker?!? Cayman should be firing Baines and taking front page issue with our Premier, the Minister of Home Affairs. It’s a joke!
CNS: I’ve now added the report to the article.
Hmmm.
Guess they should have not have suspended (and still have on suspension for 3yrs now), that chief engineer, that was keeping everything running at the MU.
His story has never been told because the truth would show what was going on there. He fought his heart out everyday to keep that place going. Anyone at the MU would tell you this.
Don’t worry brother, the truth will be told someday.
OH YEAH? i SUPPOSE FRIENDS HAVE TO BE SUPPORTED.
Yeah Right,
I am in agreement.
Because he knew his job and wouldnt let other peoples friends(who couldnt do the work anyways), even under threats, bilk the government thousands of dollars for half assed work, they came after him.
What has not been disclosed by the police or the family are the dangerous modifications to the boat that a local surveyor has reported on, the fact the boat was likely to capsize and why one of those modifications were for more fuel? The GPS gave the track on the day according to the report. Anything else in there? Everyone walking the marl road knows what this boat was used for. Oh, just a thought, why was it painted ocean blue and had an added cover to the front painted blue? Then we can consider exposing and endangering children, and the real issue comes out. Coupled with the delay in anyone reporting them missing? But we do appear to have a marine department in some crises that needs the government to invest. It is a government responsibility for search and rescue, not the police from a police budget that is shrinking
And don’t forget that there was a burglary at his house the day after – apparently whoever he was supposed to meet up with (and probably was a no-show) was looking for their loot.
While many pile on the blame on the victims, we neglect to notice in the report that our Police with a budget of some $30mln a year have zero offshore nocturnal capability, and remains only partially staffed. We should be shifting focus on to the things that actually matter going forward.
Absolutely right, and find out why the two Units have to constantly fight for their resourcing. And where does the search and rescue priority sit.
Well here is one critic that would comment on the report and with all that was said, why not get these police boats fixed, why not hire a second pilot for back up, why not enforce that every boat is equipped with a radio and/or floating devices and issue license to new boat owners especially those new to our shores. I see no reason if a moped has to be licensed why boats shouldn’t be also? Use these new fees to hire life guards, equipments and even people to check boats for sea worthiness similar to what happens for the annual car inspection.
It’s high time the politicians wake up and use their heads and spend the money where it is more needed than buying votes each year!!
Why do you single out ” new boat owners especially those new to our shores”? Are the people who have boats or have been to sea here before somehow better? From this story obviously not!
Key word from your enquiry: enforced.
Wonder why the crew is pulling up the boat by hand, when there is a crane on board??? Answers anyone?
I suspect you know the answer to that one.
I see calls for management accountability; however, funding is not a management issue. It is a portfolio / government issue. The Unit has less than half the staff, about a third of its maintenance budget and needs more resources for continuous training. These gaps cost lives. That is not up to the police. The Officers in that Unit risk their lives daily with substandard equipment to achieve the impossible because some bean counters sit in their ivory towers and make decisions that bears no resemblance to the requirements of the Unit. Where is the accountability for that????
Beg to differ with you, it certainly can be a departmental issue if and when funds allocated for particular projects/assets are syphoned sideways to fund other pet projects. Funds approved by the LA are specific or are supposed to be, but does the accounts committee of the house ever examine this habitual shifting of funds within the RCIP? Has the Marine Unit been a victim of this robbing of Peter to pay Paul? Worth closer examination I believe. Come on you investigative journalists, earn your keep!
So there are 23 positions available for qualified applicants.
-Isme
Luckily there are no unemployed people to fill them!
Yes truly sad on so many levels. I’m glad the report highlights the communication and Marine Unit weaknesses and heads should roll over this poor management across the board. We need a better response team and community volunteers – via whats app or FB or whatever media, but never again to read a tragedy in the morning news?
When it comes to the victims, the family should SHOUT for better boat safety! Rule no 1. always wear a life-jacket and file a float plan with a family member if leaving the shore (which means 911 would have been called by 6PM when the young boys were not home for sunset supper.)
So sad all around, but thank you for the independent report. It shed light where it needed.
Every year (without fail) we have this conversation on CNS, about the need for boats to carry all necessary safety equipment.
Every year more people die on boats, as a consequence of not having the bare necessities, in terms of safety equipment.
Every year the Government (who are supposed to be serving the people of Cayman)
do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this totally avoidable tragedy…..in fact they go out of their way to do nothing, possibly, because they are ignorant and narrow minded or, can not see a way of making political points out of this misery…who knows?
There is no point blaming those brave individuals who risk their own lives, to help in these situations, what you need to do is SHOUT at your MLAs until they get it in their thick heads that there needs to be legislation and enforcement, if we are to prevent more precious lives from being taken.
PS I am sick of writing about this every year and being given the same nonsense about it being every Caymanian’s God given right to set to sea and drown themselves.
Please do something…just for once!
This kind of detail answers a lot of the questions that people first had the days after the boat first went missing….why it took an independent report to get it out there? Amongst other more important things the police need to work on their communication with the public, then perhaps these independent reports won’t be necessary.
Everything in this report, and I mean everything, given to the MLA’s in briefings, and via the various press releases. I even saw the RCIPS on Cayman TV. But everyone came up with the conspiracy theory and amplified it. End result, a waste of money report, we pay for two police commissioners for the next 12 months (Baines cleared on other complaints from the West Bay mafia) and Baines laughs all the way to his retirement home. Bet he’s not flying economy when he comes back.
The police put out detailed press releases every day, in some cases several times a day, all through this incident. Reporters were more busy interviewing screaming relatives in front of the George Town Police Station and looking for every opportunity to skewer the police than to report on details like the ones in this report. Communication is a two-way street. Police did communicate but no one wanted to listen. It was “too technical” to go into air flight specifications and regulations – there wasn’t enough drama in that – it was much easier for the reporters to film relatives and their money-seeking attorneys claiming they had been wronged, and for talk-show-hosts-turned-politicians to portray themselves as a champion of the people on the air at the cost of the truth. All while certain family members jimmied their phones to create 9-1-1 calls that never happened to try to give their attorney a case to sue the government. This whole episode makes me sick and has shown so many ugly sides of this island.
Sort of. We got “crew got seasick”, “crew crashed prop”, not the Guardian leaks noxious diesel fumes that actually poisons the crew. We were never told the JMU is staffed at 37% in equipment that is chronically broken and not maintained. I think we would have remembered that stuff. RCIPS also denied that ASU was short a pilot and that it lacked a capability beyond VFR. These are important facts that were self-incriminating and deliberately withheld. It wouldn’t have mattered if the 5 were wearing lifejackets or all cuddled into a life raft. The RCIPS had (and probably still has) no capability to go offshore after dark. We should be furious at the man who was in charge of allocating his budget and now on his way. Cayman should tear up the one year severance package and terminate him for cause, using the facts revealed in this report.
It shows MAC is full of baloney. He’s not fit for government.
I disagree, although it pains me to say, I think this report is very vindicating for Mac. While feting himself and telling us what a great force he has, Baines obviously wasn’t maintaining JMU or ACU capability. He absolutely presided over the managerial failures revealed in the report and highlighted again in the conclusions section. Did you read the report?
Where are the critics’ acknowledgement? Silence now!
Crickets, as usual! Stir the pot and cost the country for an investigation that turns up nothing that wasn’t already known, albeit undisclosed to the public! Well, I guess that made it worthwhile after all….
Yes I would like to see a lot of apologies on here now, but we know that will never happen.
Did you read the report?