Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service
The Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service (RAFMRS) provides the United Kingdom military's only all-weather search and rescue asset for the United Kingdom. Royal Air Force (RAF) mountain rescue teams (MRTs) were first organised during World War II to rescue aircrew from the large number of military aircraft crashes then occurring due to navigational errors in conjunction with bad weather and resulting poor visibility when flying in the vicinity of high ground. The practice at the time was to organise ad-hoc rescue parties from station medical sections and other ground personnel.
Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Team memorial plaque in St Clement Danes church crypt, London.
Members of the former RAF Leuchars Mountain Rescue Team at the foot of Bitch Craig in the Scottish Borders
RAF mountain rescue equipment displayed at the Leuchars Airshow, 2012
Mountain rescue refers to search and rescue activities that occur in a mountainous environment, although the term is sometimes also used to apply to search and rescue in other wilderness environments. This tends to include mountains with technical rope access issues, snow, avalanches, ice, crevasses, glaciers, alpine environments and high altitudes. The difficult and remote nature of the terrain in which mountain rescue often occurs has resulted in the development of a number of specific pieces of equipment and techniques. Helicopters are often used to quickly extract casualties, and search dogs may be deployed to find a casualty.
Lowering a litter on a steep slope (training)
Special stretcher for mountain rescue (Black Forest)
Mountain rescue team members and other services attend to a casualty in Freiburg Germany.
A mountain rescue team in Iran moving a casualty.