Sea King Tests Hospital Helipad

Striking images have been released of a Royal Navy Sea King landing on the helipad at the country's newest and largest hospital.

The £842 million South Glasgow University Hospital will eventually replace the city's Royal Hospital for Sick Kids at Yorkhill, the Southern General Hospital, the Western and Victoria infirmaries and the Mansionhouse Unit.

The 1,109-bed facility on the site of the Southern General will be one of the largest acute hospitals in the UK and home to several specialist services.

After carrying out several training sorties, the Sea King, based at HMS Gannet in Ayrshire, recovered two injured casualties and landed them on the helipad two weeks ago.

In both cases the patients were not seriously hurt. Up to 10,000 NHS staff will be based at the site when it is fully operational.

The pictures of the Sea King landing on the helipad were taken during one of the training exercises.

HMS Gannet is usually home to three Sea King Mk 5 helicopters which provide a rescue service in the west of Scotland, north-west England and Northern Ireland.

Last month, the helicopters took part in the biggest ever Joint Warrior Exercise off the west coast of Scotland, when over 220 sorties were flown from the base at Prestwick including 34 flights in support of personnel movements and the resupply of logistics.

Lieutenant Commander Charlie Fuller, the commanding officer of HMS Gannet, said: "At the same time as hosting Joint Warrior, Gannet remains the busiest SAR base in the UK by some way.

"We'd just achieved our 100th search and rescue job this year as the exercise came to a close and yesterday achieved four rescues in one day, over a period lasting almost 10 hours.''