The Piper Alpha explosion in 1988, the Boscastle flood of 2004 and the Riverdance ferry stranding off the Lancashire coast last February were all emergencies where RAF Search and Rescue Force crews saved lives.

The force is on standby 24 hours a day to respond to emergencies in the UK and beyond. Its primary role is to recover RAF personnel but in peacetime the majority of call-outs are to civilian incidents — about 1,000 every year. Twenty-eight four-man crews are based in six locations in the UK.

Four weeks after Sergeant Edward Griffiths, a winchman in the force’s team at RAF Valley, North Wales, finished his training he was called out to rescue a boy who had fallen down a cliff. “He was wedged in a crevice on the shoreline with the tide coming in. He had broken his back and I used everything I had learnt in training to get him out and into surgery. The care we gave him helped him to walk again within a few months.”

Griffiths, 28, did an engineering degree at Loughborough University and had no special career plans when he wandered into the Armed Forces careers office. After a three-day selection session he joined the RAF. His training took four years, including 250 hours learning to fly.

“My ambition was to work in the search and rescue force and I was fortunate to be selected as soon as I qualified. We are helicopter rear crew who are also trained paramedics and I’m ‘on the wire’, so I am winched into position for a rescue, then have to deal with the medical side.”

His team in North Wales is called out to help people in trouble at sea or on the cliffs, as well as climbers in Snowdonia National Park.

He says: “We train for up to four hours a day and the rest of the time we catch up with admin. The most exciting part of the job is when the phone rings. There is an instant adrenalin rush as we take down the details of where we are going. Each job has its own challenges.”

All crew members do a six to eight-week tour in the Falkland Islands every year to provide cover for the military and civilian population.

Squadron Leader Nick Pollard, the officer commanding 203 (Reserve) Squadron, who trains crews, says: “Some also spend three months as part of the medical emergency response teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is good for our winchmen to gain experience of war trauma.”

Search and rescue pilots need good leadership skills, he adds. “They may have to lead their crew into dangerous situations when someone else’s life is on the line. They must be calm under pressure and level-headed when things go wrong — and probably mature beyond their years.”

The Riverdance ferry was struck by a huge wave off Morecambe Bay and had to be evacuated. Flight Lieutenant Giles Ratcliffe was the co-pilot

on the first helicopter on the scene and lifted off the first of the 23 crew and passengers. He says “I had been in the university air squadron at

St Andrews University, where I read philosophy, and always wanted to join the RAF. Serving in search and rescue is rewarding because you are helping people in difficulties.”

Griffiths hopes to become an instructor but still wants to take part in rescues because he “loves the job”. The RAF does not recruit directly into the search and rescue force. Instead, the most suitable staff from other areas of the force are selected. At the Search and Rescue Training Unit at RAF Valley all air crews undertake three weeks’ instruction.

Helicopter pilots who want to become search and rescue pilots can apply to do an advanced course once they have been approved by a panel.

The training unit’s courses are geared to testing physical and mental strength. Long hours and extreme conditions mean that only those with commitment and courage are selected to join search and rescue teams.

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