Mayday alert sees Coastguard and Lifeboat volunteers called out to search River Dee

Volunteers from HM Coastguard Flint along with colleagues from Rhyl and Wirral were called out on Sunday afternoon following a spoken MAYDAY message which was heard on the marine VHF radio channel designated as a distress frequency.

The Mayday message, which is an internationally used voice alert to signal a life-threatening emergency, was picked up by the Moel-Y-Parc radio mast in the Clwydian Range and believed the have originated from the River Dee area.

Around the same time the Coastguard Operations Centre in Holyhead received an alert of a ‘overdue’ kayaker that had set off from the West Kirby area.

Lifeboats from both RNLI Flint and RNLI West Kirby were also scrambled as a search got underway.

Flint Coastguard Rescue Team began a search of the Welsh side of the River Dee from Flint heading along the coast towards Talacre Beach checking vantage points of the river.

The Rhyl team searched from Prestatyn towards the position of the Flint team.

Wirral Coastguard along with West Kirby Lifeboat were tasked with searching the English side of the river from West Kirby to Thurstaston including Hilbre island and the Little Eye.

During this search the overdue kayaker was found ashore safe but he confirmed he did not send a mayday message.

A spokesperson for Flint Coastguard said:

“By the time both Flint and Rhyl teams had met up at Glan-Y-Don where nothing untoward had been found by us and Flint Lifeboat.

Holyhead then requested both Flint CRT and lifeboat then relocate to Connah’s Quay area, that way the whole river had been covered for anyone else possibly in distress.

Again a search was carried out from the Blue Bridge, Queensferry towards the Flintshire Bridge, Connah’s Quay again nothing found.

Holyhead were happy that no one else was in difficulty and all areas searched thoroughly and that all teams could stand down.”