Coast Guard Helicopter Cliff Rescue Training, Mori Pt, 3/31/26

Almost every Tuesday the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco performs training exercises at Mori Point in Pacifica, CA. This week when I heard the familiar whine of the MH-65 Dolphin helicopters show up and looked out to see them, I noticed there was an orange blob almost half-way down the cliff at Mori Pt. My first thought was "they wouldn't have put a crewman down there for training, would they?" and then my immediate next thought was "oh wait, that's probably their rescue dummy". I grabbed my binoculars and sure enough, it was the dummy. But that meant they were going to do a full cliff rescue training. So I grabbed my camera, raced up to the roof and started shooting some video.

They performed a total of 5 simulated rescues: two from the first helicopter, two from the second helicopter, and then the last one was from the second helicopter and he pulled the rescue dummy up off the cliff and lowered it on Mori Pt. I initially had a couple of the rescues in the video, but the rescues take a while and I didn't think too many people would sit through multiple. The final rescue, recovering the dummy seemed to be a good one to use, especially because the rescuer seemed to have a bit of fun as he was getting hauled up after dropping off the dummy. :-)

Many thanks to those fine service members who guard our coast and train over-and-over so that when the time comes for a real rescue they're ready and they can bring back someone's loved one.

Note that in the past, some of my photos and videos have made it back to the crewmembers. If any of them see this and want the footage from any of the other rescue attempts, just let me know.