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FRC The Virtual Heroes

DARA FITZPATRICK Station Promethium

Dara Fitzpatrick (1971/1972 – 14 March 2017) was the Irish Coast Guard’s most senior helicopter search and rescue pilot. As a Captain, she piloted the Dublin-based Rescue 116 helicopter. She was killed in the 2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash in March 2017.

Fitzpatrick had originally wanted to join Aer Lingus, but didn’t get accepted. The Irish Air Corps was hiring pilots, so she began taking helicopter lessons. She was one of the first women to pilot an aircraft for the Irish Marine Emergency Service, the precursor to the Coast Guard. She was initially stationed with the Shannon-based search and rescue team, before transferring to Waterford in 2002 where she became chief pilot of the Rescue 117 helicopter, a Sikorsky S-61N. She later joined the Dublin Coast Guard crew and was pilot in charge of Rescue 116, a Sikorsky S-92A.

In 2010, Fitzpatrick and her crew received the “Best of Irish Award” for rescuing an airplane pilot who had crashed into the Irish Sea. In August 2013, Fitzpatrick and her colleague, Captain Carmel Kirby, made Irish aviation history when they crewed the first all-female mission in the Irish Coast Guard helicopter service.

Fitzpatrick died after her search and rescue team’s helicopter, Rescue 116, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while providing top cover for the Sligo-based search and rescue helicopter, Rescue 118, during a rescue mission off the west coast of County Mayo, Ireland.

Maria Andrew Station Sarcee
Maria Mestre de los Dolores Andreu (April 25, 1801 – after 1860) became the first Hispanic-American woman to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and the first to command a federal shore installation in 1859. Andreu took over as the lighthouse keeper at the St. Augustine Lighthouse in Florida after the death of her husband, Juan, the previous lighthouse keeper. She served as the lighthouse keeper until 1862, when the light was extinguished so that it would not help the Union Army during the Civil War

Maria served as keeper at a salary of $400 a year until 1861, when the light was ordered darkened by the then Confederate States Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory, and George C. Gibbs. She is believed to have left St. Augustine and moved to Georgia, where she spent the rest of her life in obscurity.

Filed Under: August 2020

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