CHC Contract for Search and Rescue gone to Bristow

R116 just roared overhead pretty low and fast from Weston to Killiney. (Looks like a rescue rather than training)

Ive noticed previously it seems like it flies lower than the S92 did. Does anyone know if this is the case?

Certainly this evening it was the lowest/fastest thing to fly over our area since the Ospreys for the college football game.

If this evening, while the website may have shown MED116, it was using a Coast Guard callsign, IIRC, en route to a ship NE of Dublin. I doubt they would drop "Rescue" for actual missions as this is their primary role.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0821/1529564-coast-guard-ireland/

They seem to have had some sort of a 'launch'/publicity drive yesterday. They were calling it a launch of the fixed-wing service withthe Beechcraft. Looks like they will have a broader role than just S&R, doing patrols and monitoring for pollution etc.

"For the first time, the Coast Guard has a dedicated fixed wing aircraft which will enable it to meet international obligations in proactive maritime environmental monitoring and pollution investigation, enhancing our overall awareness of any threats to our maritime environment, covering an area of 132,000 square miles."

There's been a significant increase in use of the (volunteer) lifeboat for patient transfer from Arranmore since Sligo changed to Bristow.

The RNLI posted a goodbye thing for them some months ago; and they are now doing patient transfers at a rate which they never did before (3 on Sunday alone). It's possible that Shannon had been doing some of the work before in that case.

Or CHC not doing, as subs for Bristow, what Bristow won't?

Hardly, a huge amount of those medevacs are no different to Aran Islands, walking wounded that dont require a helicopter to be tasked, but also some are due to weather too.

It's unfortunately the case that the Dáil Public Accounts Committee is a largely a political performance stage for TDs and it would be erroneous to believe that it is primarily focused on establishing facts in a professional and dispassionate manner. Anyone who has observed these types of proceedings or who has had the dubious pleasure of being called as a witness will probably be aware of this. I may end up being surprised on this occasion but my hopes are not very high.

Well said & the 189 is way off being a slam dunk it is not big enough to carry all the required gear & never will be, it is not a combined SAR/HEMS aircraft like the S92 is & SAR/HEMS combined is what the IRCG are doing, the 189 needs to land back at base & waste time by swapping out gear & setting up for whatever it is required to do so if R115 is airborne for SAR training & down off Kerry & has a HEMS tasking in Co Clare they have to rtb & swap all the gear out, total waste of time, the S92 is airborne for SAR & the same happens to them its no issue they just head to the HEMS tasking while airborne. Shitshow.

This tender is a joke. Heads should be rolling.

Also, what currently happens when the S-92 is already on task on something else?

Or (and even though you like to claim it doesn't, it actually does) has to on/off load kit?

They call in another asset.

So, just going to overlook all the other bits I mentioned? Oh ok then. I don't have to try harder.

EI-IRF is flight-planned SNN-KIR-SNN today - maybe to see if the issue has been resolved.

2Excel flew a DA-62 into Shannon yesterday for top cover. Please stop telling lies, we get it, you love CHC and the Air Corps.

No coolaide here, just facts..

You claim to have contacts in the Coastguard and spout any tidbit of gossip of "how everything is terrible", yet by the time you claimed there was no top cover, there had been a replacement aircraft into Shannon, which had subsequently flown in and out the same afternoon under an Irish Coastguard designator.