Coastguard helicopter brought in to help with overnight River Dee search

A Coastguard search and rescue helicopter was brought in to help search the River Dee in Deeside following reports that a person was in the water.

The Flint-based volunteer Coastguard Rescue team were called out just before 12am on Thursday to assist North Wales Police search the river after a member of the public reported seeing a ‘possible person’ in the water near the Blue Bridge area in Queensferry.

Wirral Coastguard Rescue Team also joined the search from the Blue Bridge in Queensferry to Saltney Ferry footbridge.

Flint R.N.L.I Lifeboat were called to assist, the crew searched from their launch site at Connah’s Quay docks along the River Dee to Chester.

A Caernarfon based search and rescue helicopter was brought in at around 2.15am this morning to help with the search.

The crew using infrared equipment carried out a detailed search of the water near Hawarden Bridge before moving further along the river searching near Airbus and to the border with Chester.

Around 45 minutes later the helicopter returned to the Caernarfon base after nothing ‘untoward’ was found

Radar track of the search and rescue helicopter over Deeside in the early hours of this morning.

A coastguard spokesperson said:

“With the given search area having been fully saturated in just over 3 hours were happy for all units to stand down.”