​​​​The incident of Sunday 3 November involved the potential loss of two fisherman and a small open dinghy in the vicinity of the Ecrehous, resulting in a major search and rescue operation being launched. The outcome was fortunate in that there was no loss of life; the fishing vessel J69 was itself undamaged and the crew were all rescued with no permanent ill effects. 

The incident was, at the time, very serious. It involved a significant number of personnel and assets, all of which were placed in danger given the very bad weather and that operations were conducted at night. 

As a result, it was decided to seek an external investigation with the aim of establishing facts and ascertaining whether there were safety lessons to learn for the future.