Air Force rescue at Sea on Carnival Venezia

[Noledad77]

I'm glad that the USAF was able to send their folks out there to take care of getting the boy off the ship. He'll have a pretty cool story to tell for a long, long time!

[Palmetto Pilot]

Sometimes I really miss flying rescue helicopters in the military. Most rewarding job I've ever had. 

[jimbo5544]

On 5/12/2024 at 4:28 AM, chengkp75 said:

Coast Guard helicopters cannot refuel in flight.  That is why the Air Force was tasked with the long range mission on Venezia, because they have the capability of inflight refueling.

as always, thanks or the expert posts.

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, rolloman said:

I simply pointed it out that it is far from free. Please don't spin it into anything more than that. The carefree use of the term "free" is one reason why the country is in trillions of dollars of debt. 

Whoa. I do not think we are really disagreeing, only emphasizing different things. You are pointing out it is paid for, while I am emphasizing that there are a lot less worthwhile things that our tax dollars are being used for.

[IntrepidFromDC]

On 5/11/2024 at 8:16 AM, carol louise said:

If I’m not mistaken, this evacuation was a little unusual in taking place so far from land (350 miles), and the helicopters had to refuel in the air during transit to the ship.

Correct, three air-to-air refuelings as detailed in jimbo's link.  Great story, including the ending (boy is recovering). 

[carol louise]

20 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

So the ship didn’t have time to get closer to the east coast and only Air Force helicopters could get out that far? 

Actually, the ship did go closer to land to meet the aircraft partway. My husband loves maps, so during the cruise we had our in-cabin tv tuned to the station indicating our location, direction, path. Abut 2-3 hours before the rescue, we took a pronounced turn to port, heading west directly toward the coast rather than continuing northeast toward New York. Until we heard the announcement about an hour after the turn that an evacuation would take place in another couple hours, we wondered if the ship was redirecting to avoid some weather ahead. Once the patient and his mother were transferred, we resumed our course back towards NY.

[carol louise]

Correction to my post above: our course from Dominican Republic home to NY that was interrupted by the rescue was in a northwest direction, not northeast.

[skywalkr2]

21 hours ago, carol louise said:

Actually, the ship did go closer to land to meet the aircraft partway. My husband loves maps, so during the cruise we had our in-cabin tv tuned to the station indicating our location, direction, path. Abut 2-3 hours before the rescue, we took a pronounced turn to port, heading west directly toward the coast rather than continuing northeast toward New York. Until we heard the announcement about an hour after the turn that an evacuation would take place in another couple hours, we wondered if the ship was redirecting to avoid some weather ahead. Once the patient and his mother were transferred, we resumed our course back towards NY.

 

I was a good boy as well and was in my cabin.  I took a picture of the cruise route from the TV to show the 90 degree turn towards shore...  

 

Must say I was rather annoyed to see other passengers had stayed up top and took videos. If I had known they weren't going to enforce the order, I would have stayed up there.