The UK’s longest-serving search-and-rescue winch operator has retired after saving more than 1,000 lives in a distinguished 44-year-career.
Kieran Murray’s accomplishments included one record-breaking rescue mission that resulted in the greatest number of people saved by a single helicopter in the UK.
In recent years he worked with his son, Kieran jun, a search-and-rescue captain, and the pair signed off in style with three final call-outs in his final weekend.
Mr Murray, from Shetland, said: “It was nice to leave on a high. Rather than finish on a training flight, we finished on an actual job.
“Of course I’ll miss it.”
Mr Murray initially joined the Royal Navy at the age of 15 in 1964, working in the catering division before going on to train as a ship’s diver.
After working his way up to become a Navy search-and-rescue diver, he left the service in 1979 to join Bristow Helicopters.
He arrived in Shetland in 1983 and saw his fair share of dramatic crashes and tragedies.
November 1993 was particularly memorable as he and his team saved 109 people in four missions.
The biggest – which remains a UK record – happened when the Latvian boat Lunokhod went aground next to Shetland’s Bressay Lighthouse in 80mph winds.
After winching 23 men on board their Sikorsky S61 helicopter and taking them to Lerwick, Mr Murray and his crew returned to what they thought was an empty boat – only to see a flare go off at the back of the sinking vessel.
The remaining 33 men were winched off the sinking vessel in the biggest single rescue lift in the UK.
Seven days later, another huge ship, the Borodinskoye Polye, hit Unicorn Rock off Hawk’s Ness in gale-force winds and heavy seas. Mr Murray helped lift 36 people from the vessel.
The very next day another six men were rescued from the fishing vessel Crusader.
The UK’s assistant chief of naval staff, Rear Admiral Fleet Air Arm Russ Harding, paid tribute to Mr Murray’s efforts over the years, both with the Navy and in civilian search and rescue.
“I am humbled that one man has given so much and saved so many,” he told him. “Having embodied the finest traditions of the service, you can be immensely proud of your long and distinguished career.”