Norway Search and Rescue

[Storker]

Search and rescue in Norway

Search and rescue on land and at sea is by a combination of public and private organizations:

• The national air force (330 Squadron) are responsible for our rescue aircraft fleet and operates both over land and over water.
• The municipal fire and rescue brigades carry the responsibilty for our public rescue divers. Unfortunately, not all fire and rescue brigades have the resources to train and maintain a competent rescue diver operation, but on the other hand they are able to cooperate with each other.
• The Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue (RS) is modeled after the RNLI in UK and is a non-profit charity organization financed by donations, memberships and public funds. They are extremely competent and have 26 rescue cruisers stationed all along the coast.
• The ambulance services which are subcontracted by the regional health authorities
• The Norwegian Red Cross Search and Rescue Corps
  
• Norwegian Alpine Rescue Groups - an association of voluntary alpine rescue groups around the country

It sounds complicated, but for the public it's wonderfully simple. If there's an emergency, you call 112. If you have your wits around you and are able to remember it, you might prefer calling ambulance services (113) or the fire brigade (110) directly, but the 112 central is supposed to transfer you to the appropriate service. In my diving club - and I guess most of the other ones as well - our emergency response procedure for diving accidents says that we should call 113. And just FTR, all those numbers (110, 112 or 113) are toll-free and work regardless of whether or not your specific carrier provides service where you are.

If you have a non-emergency situation at sea, but require assistance, you call the coastal radio central either on channel 16 on your VHF, or at 120 on your mobile phone to have them direct one of RS' rescue cruisers your way.

All life-critical SAR operations in Norway are free. Or rather, they are fully financed through taxes, donations and membership fees. Non-life-critical assistance, say if your boat engine dies on you and you have immediate control of the situation, will cost you, though. Unless you hold a "Total membership" in RS, which costs you some 1000 NOK (about 100€) per year (caveat: this is for private persons; I don't know how it would be for a commercial operation).

So if the crap hits the fan, you issue a pan-pan or mayday through Channel 16, or call 112 on your mobile. All coordination after that is done by Hovedredningssentralen. And don't worry about the costs either, it's all on us. But since it's on us, it's the authorities who decide when to cancel an operation, either because the chance of finding the victim is considered too low, or that a body recovery operation is too dangerous for the rescue personnel.

Here's an example of how the coastal radio, 330 Squadron and RS cooperate to rescue the crew on a fishing boat. It all starts with the skipper calling Bodø Radio (the closest coastal radio station) and telling them, rather calmly that "Yes, hello, there. We're in a bit of a bind over here."