At 3:15pm on Friday 28th August 2020, Guernsey Coastguard received a call from a member of the public reporting concern for his friend who was 45 minutes overdue in returning to land having been snorkelling on the west coast of Herm.

Given choppy conditions and the fact that the man had not been positively seen since 1pm, St Peter Port All Weather Lifeboat (ALB) and Inshore Lifeboat (ILB) were both launched in order to conduct a search. Channel Island Air Search was also paged and another vessel in the area was able to assist.

Lifeboats were on scene by 3:45pm and after conducting a short search around the Rocquerie and Plat Houmet area, the man was located safe and well shortly after 4pm having lost track of time. He was returned to Herm Harbour and both Lifeboats and Airsearch were stood down.

At 16:53 this evening a concerned member of the public on the East coast of Herm contacted Guernsey Coastguard stating that an aircraft trailing smoke was seen to lose altitude, however it was not seen to crash and no accurate distance or positions could be given, only that it had possibly crashed somewhere between Sark and the adjacent coast of France.

The St Peter Port all weather lifeboat, ‘Spirit of Guernsey’ and the Channel Islands Airsearch aircraft, ‘Airsearch 1’ were both launched at 17:20 in order to investigate the sighting further.

The St Peter Port Lifeboat arrived on scene at 17:55 with Airsearch 1 arriving at 18:17 at which time an extensive search was conducted in the near perfect conditions of smooth seas and visibility in excess of 10 nautical miles.

Sark and Herm constables mobilised manpower to conduct visual searches from the shore and also several small vessels from Sark put to sea to assist in the search.

Enquiries were made with Air Traffic Control authorities in Guernsey, Jersey, France and the United Kingdom, all of which investigated and found no overdue aircraft or any acting erratically on recorded radar displays. No distress calls or beacon alerts were received at any time during the incident.

At 20:00 with no sightings of any objects or fuel slicks on the water, and no further information from air traffic sources the decision was taken to cease the search.

Airsearch 1 was back on station at 20:15 with the St Peter Port Lifeboat being back on station at 20:52.

Until any further information is available this incident is being treated as a call with good intent and Guernsey Coastguard are grateful to the informant who showed the presence of mind to call in an event that looked out of place.

The St Peter Port Inshore Lifeboat (ILB) was launched last evening (6th July 2020) to go to the assistance of two 17 year old males who were in difficulties off the Groines at Vazon.

Guernsey Coastguard received a call at 19:27, informing them that 2 males were in difficulty and clinging to the Groines.

The ILB departed St Peter Port at 19:43 and was on scene at 20:05, the Spirit of Guernsey was also tasked to assist, departing at 20:02.

An experienced local surfer on a rescue board made his way to the two persons in distress and gave assistance and ultimately paddled them back to shore.

Thanks must be given to a surfer who threw his board out to the casualties, which they then managed to get a hold of, and which provided a buoyancy aid, until the local surfer reached them.

The two lifeboats were stood down, and were back on station at 20:43 and 20:32 respectively.