Flighthaven Drone Aerial Photography

04/04/2024

A new mountain rescue series starts on More 4 this coming Sunday 7th April - 9:00pm

17/07/2022

Incident No.67 from 4th to 8th July
Type: Full Callout
Location: Central Fells
Start: 08:10 on 4th
Finish: 14:24 on 8th
Duration: 5 days
Weather: Mixture of clear dry weather, rain and mist over the 4 days of searching
Team Members involved: 35 from Wasdale MRT, 7 from Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team, 7 from Keswick Mountain Rescue Team, 3 from Langdale Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team (LAMRT), 10 from Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team, 1 from Derby Mountain Rescue Team, 10 from Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service (RAF Leeming), plus Maritime and Coastguard Agency helicopters R199 and R936, 5 search dogs, 8 drones, (2 of whom were with West Cumbria Search and Rescue. Many of these people came out for several days.
Grid Reference: NY204069

The team were called about a walker who had not made contact with his family as expected. Extensive searches were conducted over 3 days in the Central Fells, plus Langdale, Eskdale, Mosedale, Borrowdale and Ennerdale. Searches continued into the 4th day and the casualty was found in the early evening. Sadly he had not survived.
The team deployed and brought him back down to the valley.
We have had unstinting support from MR colleagues from across the Lake District and beyond (Yorkshire and Derbyshire), RAF Leeming, search dogs, drones, West Cumbria Search and Rescue, Coastguard helicopters R199 and R936, and police. We are extremely grateful to them.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends.

24/05/2022

Pete was our second trainee drone pilot for our team until his illness forced him to step down. A great guy and was a pleasure to be with

The team said a sad farewell to a stalwart of the team since February 1980. Pete Baines sadly passed away peacefully at home after a long illness earlier this month, and his funeral was held yesterday in Nether Wasdale.

In his time, he has been Quartermaster, Buildings Officer, committee member, Trustee, and latterly Duty Team Leader. He was also a skilled and experienced Casualty Carer, providing first aid on the fell. He regularly took on additional tasks to make things run smoothly behind the scenes. Aside from that he was blessed with a great sense of humour, and with speed on the hill, he often arrived well in advance of the rest of us.

It is difficult to establish exactly but we can be confident that Pete has attended well over a thousand callouts in his 42 years in the team, and so we can say he has directly helped several thousand people in their time of need. The team’s leadership would like to formally recognise their huge thanks and appreciation to both Pete and Janice, his wife, for their support to the team over such a long period.

We were also very thankful to be able to give Pete a formal team send off with many team members, past and present, attending in their red team jackets. Pete was also laid to rest in a team jacket, by his own wish. He will be sadly missed, both on and off the fell.

So, for the last time:

“Wasdale Pete, Wasdale Pete, this is Wasdale Base. We thank you for your amazing service. Listening, out.”

10/03/2022

23/09/2021

02/08/2021

Well done Sarah

Help Sarah Collier raise money to support Movember

21/07/2021

Incident No. 39 of 2021 on June 28th
Type : Full callout
Location : Great Gable
Start : 1645
Finish : 0120 on the 29th
Duration : 8h 35m
Weather : Warm, sunny
Team Members involved : 19 Wasdale MRT
Grid Reference : NY 209100
We were alerted by Cumbria Police about 2 walkers who had gone astray on their descent from Great Gable and become stuck on dangerous ground. The team was mobilised including the team drone and operator. The drone was used to help locate the walkers and guide the team to a suitable position. Once this was done a rope system was set up from above. A single rescuer was lowered down the gully to one of the walkers, who was then equipped with a harness and helmet, attached to the rope and both lowered to safer ground, the process being repeated for the second walker. That party then made their way off the fell, while the belaying party above stripped out the belays and made their way off the hill with that equipment plus the 250m of rope that had been used. Once back at base the equipment was checked and replenished and then the team gratefully consumed a large quantity of pizza which has been ordered by the Team Leader.

A nine hour rescue for the Wasdale team running from one day into early morning the next. Two walkers on Great Napes, Great Gable in Wasdale - luckily they ...

14/07/2021

The Wasdale mountain rescue team were out on a nine hour rescue a couple of weeks back. Involved two walkers stuck in a pretty dangerous location. Message is clear about the need for understanding the basics of map reading. Fortunately they stopped before it was too late.

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Cheers

Richard Warren
Wasdale MRT and the CAA Authorised drone Pilot

A nine hour rescue for the Wasdale team. Two walkers on Great Napes, Great Gable - luckily decided to hold their position above a considerable drop in Arrow...

06/07/2021

Just helping Sarah Bilko with her challenge event - drone footage from Scafell Pike

Sarah has taken on a massive challenge to raise money for men's wellbeing - visit her page to read why and what is involved - 50 ascents of the highest mount...

27/06/2021

The leaders and officers of Cumbria’s twelve mountain rescue team met virtually at our June quarterly meeting and following a full agenda totally surprised Dr. Paula Cook, our LDSAMRA Medical Officer with a Distinguished Service award. Given for her outstanding contribution to the region’s teams during the Covid-19 pandemic. 2020 was tough for everyone but for Paula, as a local GP in Ambleside, juggling her professional role alongside being one of the team doctors in the very busy Langdale and Ambleside Team, the year brought very considerable pressures. These included being our medical lead at Cumbria’s weekly Local Resiliencd SCG chaired by Cumbria Police, implementation of Covid practices and PPE protection for team members during rescues, securing vast quantities of PPE, arrangements for early vaccination of our 400 team members and now overseeing the weekly Lateral Flow Testing all taken in her stride. On behalf of our 400 volunteer team members we thank you for continuing to keep us safe from the virus. Richard Warren, Chair LDSAMRA

20/06/2021

Congratulations to Mark Hodgson, past team leader of Keswick MRT and a leading member of the LDSAMRA silver group providing support to the teams in the event of a major incident within Cumbria. Since the start of the Pandemic Mark has religiously attended the weekly and sometimes twice or thrice weekly Strategic Coordinating Group meetings Chaired mainly by Assistant Chief Constable Andy Slattery but also Cumbria’s Chief Constable - attended by all the senior leaders from Cumbria’s partner agencies via video link. The SCG has now been stood down and replaced by a Covid Strategic Recovery Group

Mark has attended total of 79 SCG’s since the start of the pandemic and setting up of the meetings early in 2020 supported at many of these by Dr. Paula Cook our medical Lead - it must be a record that we hop we never have to repeat or break.