The History of Sky Watch

Chairman Arnold Parker formed the service with a handful of fellow pilots after the deaths of two little girls, Sophie George (8) and Kymberley Allcock (8) who were struck by a train while playing on a railway bridge near Borth, West Wales, in July 2000.

Kymberley Allcock

Kymberley Allcock
Light aircraft fly lower than airliners and executive jets. If pilots of small aeroplanes would keep a look out whilst they were flying, they might inform Air Traffic Control of people in dangerous situations, by a 999 call to the Emergency Services, and perhaps prevent incidents from turning into tragedies.

From these simple beginnings SWCAP has grown to over 250 aircraft throughout the UK and is now the largest voluntary air observation and search organisation in Europe.

In 2007 SWCAP achieved its first "life saved" during a joint operation with HM Coastguard.



The initiative became known as "Sky Watch". More pilots heard about it and offered to help. At the time of writing there are rather more than over 200 pilots on Sky Watch. They operate a wide variety of aircraft,including a small number of helicopters and autogyros. However, the bulk of Sky Watch aircraft are from the microlight and PFA category as the majority can fly slowly, most have STOL performance, and are capable of operating from basic grass strips.