6:29pm Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Andrew Douglas
A LIFEBOAT was launched today after a distress flare was sighted off the County Durham coast.
The crew of Sunderland RNLI Lifeboat arrived off Seaham within ten minutes whilst an RAF Nimrod was diverted to the area to help in the search - which lasted two hours.
Eventually, it was learnt that the distress flare had been deliberately fired from land as a hoax - the sixth such incident in that area in the last year.
Anthony Jobling, Helmsman at Sunderland RNLI, said: "This is the sixth time in twelve months that our volunteers have been scrambled to Seaham due to distress flares being deliberately fired from the land.
"It is important for the people concerned to understand that they carrying out an illegal act equivalent to that of making a hoax '999' call.
"This action could have serious consequences if someone was in genuine need of assistance while we were dealing with a false call."
The volunteer inshore lifeboat crew, under the command of Helmsman, Ian Rowan, launched at noon after members of the public reported seeing a marine flare near Seaham Harbour.
They then carried out a search half a mile east of the harbour, whilst the RAF Nimrod conducted a parallel search of the coastline up to three miles off shore.
During the search Coastguard Teams searched along the shore, including Seaham Harbour.
The RNLI crew also spoke to the crew of a yacht in the area to check they were not the source of the flare.
They also investigated an item spotted by the Nimrod about two miles east of Seaham Harbour.
After two hours of searching the lifeboat recovered a large sheet of green MDF board from the water during which time Coastguards received further information, confirming the flare had been originally fired from the land.
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