By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I might check my facts on whether the US was needed. I agree that the UK ROV was suffcient to complete the task but in a life and death situation you bring a variety of equipment. That which can respond quickly and that which provides a broad capability. I expect that the early launch of the UK ROV provided the multinational planning team to beaf up the second stage of responding equipment. I also believe that the UK did not bring its own equipment to offload the aircraft (allowing it to depart the UK earlier and not wait for that specialized equipment to get to the airport and or cause them to wait for a larger plane. Which was not a problem as the multinational team including aircraft loading and unloading K-loaders flown in by the US from a base in Japan provided the essential capability to permit the UK to offload its equipment.If the US was selfish I guess they could have offloaded their equiment first. But it was the rescue that was the concern not who did it. (Though I do compliment the UK on a job very well done.) Unfortunately in a 10 second sound bite by CNN or BBC you can not get this level of detail. As a matter of fact you would be hard pressed to see any further detail in the press on the success because it was that a success. The press would have preferred failure. That would have allowed themselves weeks of smearing and blame and coverage. I congratulate the entire multinational team from the UK, US, Japan, Russia, and the commercial ship from Shell oil that was also responding.

Comments on: Russian submariners rescued

By: Bill