Emergency in the Channel

Lifeboat crews are dedicated to saving people at sea - but having to deal with the loss of life is occasionally unavoidable.

At 4.50am, after responding to a mayday for a small boat crossing the English Channel, the Dover lifeboat is returning to station with 68 casualties on board. Suddenly, they are alerted to a new task: another vessel has capsized, and over 20 people are now fighting for their lives in the water.

In Newbiggin, on the Northumberland coast, the crew embark on an increasingly desperate search for two fishermen in fading light and heavy swells. Off the coast of Anglesey, north Wales, the Moelfre crew race to the rescue of a teenage boy who’s been swept out to sea on an inflatable dinghy as his mother watches helplessly from the shore.

And across the Irish Sea in Skerries, a distress phone call has come in from some kayakers in trouble, but the signal was so weak that the crew don’t know if they’re looking for two people in the water or 12.