Nothing found after report plane might have crashed into sea
A SEARCH was carried out after a report from a member of the public on Herm on Saturday evening that an aircraft had possibly crashed between Sark and the coast of France.
A call was made to Guernsey Coastguard at 4.53pm by the person on Herm’s east coast.
The caller said 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 possibly it had crashed.
The St Peter Port all-weather lifeboat, Spirit of Guernsey, and the Channel Islands Air Search aircraft, Airsearch 1, were both launched at 5.20pm.
The lifeboat arrived on scene at just before 6pm, with Airsearch 1 arriving 20 minutes later, 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.
Enquiries were made with air traffic control 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 8pm 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 8.15pm with the St Peter Port Lifeboat returning just before 9pm.
Until any further information is available, this incident is being treated as a call with good intent. Guernsey Coastguard is grateful to the informant who showed the presence of mind to call in an event that looked out of place.
