‘Accidental activation’ of life jacket on land leads to coastguard search effort

A POSSIBLE “accidental activation” of a life jacket near Sumburgh Airport led to a full search and rescue effort on Wednesday morning.

The coastguard sent the Sumburgh-based helicopter and its search and rescue boat to the area after a man overboard beacon was triggered on a life jacket.

The Aith lifeboat was also called to the scene.

But the coastguard said it had discovered that the alert was triggered by a life jacket on land instead, and that there was “nobody at risk in the water”.

All crews were stood down at 12.22pm.