DSAR-6 going strong in Singapore

The James Fisher Defence sub rescue vehicle, the DSAR-6 has been put to the test by the Republic of Singapore Navy's (RSN) for the first time in a military exercise, code-named Pacific Reach.

The Pacific Reach exercise involves the navies of five countries and is designed to promote regional cooperation on submarine rescue. It consists of two submarines, one from the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force and the other from RSN. The two rescue systems are from the RSN and the US Navy.

The MV swift rescue, the first fully integrated vessel of its kind in south-east Asia, works in concert with its submersible rescue vehicle, the Deep Search and Rescue Six (DSAR 6), which is commercially owned and operated by James Fisher Defence in the rescue and treatment of distressed submariners.

The DSAR 6 plunges in to the depths, attaches itself to a crippled submarine, rescues its occupants and takes them back up to the ship, where personnel trained in hyperbaric medicine can treat them.

Together with a landing ship tank, an RSN submarine and naval assets, personnel from Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States, and the MV Swift Rescue and DSAR 6, are spending most of this week and half of the next, engaged in the exercise code-named Pacific Reach. 

This is a multi-navy submarine escape and rescue exercise, comprising of a shore phase held at the Changi Command and Control Centre, and a sea phase in the South China Sea.

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