‘Little Ripper’ Drone Rescues Australian Swimmers In World First

18th January 2018

The Little Ripper drone is one of many that patrol Australian beaches on shark-watch duty Credit: Westpac/YouTube

#Drone - Beach lifeguards in Australia used a drone to rescue two swimmers in distress in what RTÉ News hails as a world first.

The ‘Little Ripper’ was launched from Lennox Head near Brisbane earlier today (Thursday 18 January) as lifeguards were readying for a training session in the use of such drones in rescue scenarios.

When two teenagers were caught in a swell outside the safety flags, the drone flew out to the swimmers and dropped an inflatable ‘rescue pod’ and were pulled back to shore in just over a minute.

The rescue was a first for the remote-piloted mini aircraft that’s more commonly used to spot sharks off Brisbane’s popular beaches.

Drones have also been hailed as a potential revolution for coastal rescues in Ireland, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

Drone used in rescue of teens sucked out to sea in Australia. pic.twitter.com/1BVpoQI0TA
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) January 18, 2018

Published in Rescue

Tagged under

About The Author

MacDara Conroy

Email The Author

MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.