One of the last civic missions by Air Corps Alouette helicopters takes place tomorrow when two of the aircraft provide safety cover for Reek Sunday on Mayo's Croagh Patrick.
The fleet of six French-built aircraft in service are due to be decommissioned this autumn, after 44 years of service which involved thousands of search-and-rescue missions and medical evacuation flights.
Two of the Alouettes marked their former search and rescue role yesterday when they participated in 150th anniversary celebrations for the RNLI's Wicklow lifeboat station.
The Air Corps was withdrawn from search-and-rescue altogether just over three years ago by then defence minister Michael Smith, who said that due to a "variety" of problems within the Air Corps, a service agreement with the Irish Coast Guard could not be met.
The decision was taken shortly after the Air Corps had secured use of a medium-lift helicopter for its northwest base in Sligo. Since then an extensive fleet replacement programme has involved replacing Alouettes and the Dauphin helicopters with AW139 and EC135 aircraft which have troop-carrying capabilities.
The first two in a fleet of eight Alouettes used by the Air Corps were delivered in November 1963. The air-sea rescue wing's first recorded mission took place on Christmas Eve 1963, when a French fishing vessel was reported to be in difficulty off the west coast.
In latter years, air-sea rescue crews used the Dauphin helicopters with night-flying capabilities, while the Alouettes were deployed mainly on mountain and inland rescue missions.
The unsuitability of the Dauphins for search and rescue was highlighted after the deaths of four airmen in a helicopter crash en route back from a night rescue mission off Co Waterford on July 2nd, 1999.
The Defence Forces said its search and rescue crews had carried out 1,717 missions and saved 5,421 lives to date, and the Alouettes had been involved in 2,882 air ambulance missions.
Wicklow lifeboat station's association with the Alouettes was marked yesterday when the station presented the Alouette crews with a photograph of one of the helicopters with its lifeboat, taken in 1963.
