Red distress flares were seen over Aberdeen last night sparking an emergency response.
Coastguard teams from Stonehaven, Cruden Bay and Aberdeen along with both of Aberdeen’s lifeboats were launched at 9.35pm after the flares were spotted in the sky over Aberdeen Harbour.
However, it turned out the flares were fired from the land with the incident labelled a “malicious false alarm” by the lifeboat crew.
Bill Deans MBE, lifeboat operations manager at Aberdeen Lifeboat Station, said: “This irresponsible act forced 9 RNLI volunteers to abandon social distancing to crew the lifeboats.
“It tied up valuable search and rescue (SAR) resources at sea and ashore. This malicious false alarm also wasted thousands of pounds of charitable donations by Aberdonians to fund their lifeboats – at a time when Covid-19 has had a significant detrimental impact on RNLI fundraising locally and nationally.”
Both of Aberdeen’s RNLI lifeboats were launched last night and searched different areas of the water.
The D-class Buoy Woody 3N searched the area from the Victora Bridge to Aberdeen Harbour entrance.
Meanwhile the Severn-class Bon Accord looked at the water round and south of Girdleness lighthouse.
UK Coastguard officers joined the search ashore.
Aberdeen Lifeboat 2nd coxswain Michael Cowlam says: “Conditions for the search were good, albeit the light was fading.
“No further distress signals were seen or received however, and, with nothing found, the lifeboats returned to base by 11pm.”
UK Coastguard have reported the incident to Police Scotland as a suspected case of distress flares being fired with malicious intent.
