MAJOR MARITIME EXERCISE OFF KENT COAST

A major maritime exercise ‘Exercise Guardex’ is taking place today Tuesday 2nd October.
 
The exercise scenario is that:

A small cruise liner (THV Patricia) transiting close to a wind farm loses power and as a result is in collision with the wind farm accommodation ship (Wind Ambition) which is at anchor off the wind farm resulting in a fire onboard. The cruise liner then collides with a wind turbine. Some passengers and crew from the cruiser are missing presumed overboard and there are a number of casualties onboard the accommodation ship.
An engineer working on the wind turbine is injured and needs to be evacuated by helicopter.

Spike Hughes, Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s Coastal Safety Manager for the South East said:

"This exercise is to test that Kent has all of the resources and planning in place to respond, should a major maritime incident arise. Of course, there will be lessons learned and all of the agencies involved will discuss how we can improve. 500 people will be taking part in Exercise Guardex and I would like to thank them all for their willingness and enthusiasm in playing their roles. I would also like to thank London Array and Trinity House for providing their ships.

Andy Cann, Health, Safety, Security and Environment Manager, London Array said:

"London Array expects and demands the highest health and safety standards and works hard on a daily basis to maintain its excellent safety record. 
We train for every reasonable and foreseeable eventuality to ensure our team is trained, competent and familiar with procedures to deal with any emergency situation that may arise. Comprehensive exercises such as Exercise Guardex will gives us a great opportunity to test our procedures in conjunction  with a range of emergency and regulatory organisations and the lessons learnt can only  help the UK’s ability to react to a major offshore incident.”

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