a perfect storm?
Search and rescue: SA under strain
SA has a statutory commitment to perform search-and-rescue operations, sometimes over huge areas. But its ability to deliver is uncertain
Only an international-scale disaster that exposes SA’s compromised ability to mount search-and-rescue operations will force the country to rebuild the high-seas lifesaving capacity it has lost, experts say. The situation is said to be so dire that a repeat of the 1991 rescue by the SA navy and air force, of 225 people from the sinking Oceanos off the Eastern Cape coast, would be impossible today. But the chiefs of the responsible agencies — Jared Blows of the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Cape Town and Santjie White of the Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre at OR Tambo — tell the FM "there are very few, if any, countries that could manage an operation of that [Oceanos] type on their own". However, Blows and White say "a multi-agency approach" gives SA "the ability to source a wide range of both air and surface assets when necessary and no one agency is left to always provide". This means "many government, private and voluntary organisations participate in executing t...
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