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Welcome to the website of
Channel Islands Airsearch which
features the work of this unique search and
rescue organisation funded by
charitable donations.
The above photographs are a selection
found in this site
CIAS is a voluntary organisation formed in 1980 for the primary purpose
of assisting in the saving of lives at sea. It is a rapid response
service, with comprehensive Search and limited Rescue capability. The
Service's aircraft will operate under the direction of any of the recognised SAR authorities, and will work in close conjunction with
lifeboats, helicopters or other vessels or aircraft. It provides a rapid
response search capability in the 4,000 square miles of water surrounding
the British Channel Islands and the adjacent French coast and is involved in 30 to
40 call outs each year. The aircraft has the capability to act as on-scene
commander, if so tasked, communicating as required by aeronautical and
marine VHF radio. Many of the crew are commercial pilots.
We celebrated our 30 th
Anniversary in 2010, and were
fortunate to be
appointed Channel Television’s partner charity during the year, which gave us a great opportunity to raise awareness
of the service through
coverage of events we attended.
When the service celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005
it
was honoured to receive the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service. Within this
site you will find not only several
Photographs but a large amount of detail on how the
Organisation
is structured. Find out more
About Us and also details from the
Operations page on how search operations are carried out
and read summaries of searches carried out in the period 1999 to 2008. In the
Aircraft Data page you will find full
specifications and photographs
of the Service's aircraft and the sophisticated equipment on board.
The News Room contains press reviews of rescues and other CIAS related
news items.
The Service costs £80,000 per annum to run and is solely dependent
upon public subscription. The Friends of Air Search in
the four main Channel Islands are responsible for
much of the fund raising and do a magnificent job each year raising money for new
equipment and running costs. In 2000 alone, the Friends of CIAS
raised a magnificent £200,000 to purchase an advanced third generation
Forward Looking Infra Red camera (FLIR) which is located beneath the nose
of the aircraft. Please help us with our fund raising - find out how you can subscribe on a regular basis by
clicking on the
Guernsey Friends or
Jersey
Friends of Air Search pages. These pages also give
details of forthcoming fund raising events and newsletters can
also be viewed.
Why not book your travel, accommodation,
theatre or concert tickets through
goandonate.com and Friends of Air
Search will receive a donation out of the commission at no cost to you.
More details
We hope you enjoy looking at this site and we look forward to receiving
any
feedback . It is
best viewed with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.
Website officially launched November 2002.
Last modified:
February 03, 2011
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