The Cyprus Joint Rescue Coordination Center or JRCC Larnaca (Greek: ) is an independent agency of the Ministry of Defence of the

Republic of Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and its primary mission is to organize the Cyprus Republic

Search and Rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

(SAR) system, to co-ordinate, to control and direct SAR operations in the region that the Cyprus JRCC is responsible for (which coincides with the Nicosia FIR), so that people, whose lives are at risk as a result of aviation or maritime accidents, can be located and rescued in the least amount of time. This is achieved by coordinating all the different agencies involved such as the

Cyprus Police Aviation Unit The Cyprus Police Aviation Unit (CPAU) ( el, Μονάδα Αεροπορικών Επιχειρήσεων (Μ.Α.ΕΠ.), is the police aviation unit of the Headquarters of Cyprus Police, the national police of the Republic of Cyprus and was estab ...

, the

Cyprus Police The Cyprus Police (Greek: ), is the National Police Service of the Republic of Cyprus and is under the Ministry of Justice and Public Order since 1993. The duties and responsibilities of the Cyprus Police are set out in the amended Police Law ( ...

Port and Marine Police, the

Cyprus National Guard , name2 = National Guard General Staff , image = Emblem of the Cypriot National Guard.svg , image_size = 100px , caption = Emblem of the National Guard of Cyprus , image2 = Flag of the ...

Naval Command, the

Air Force Command, the

Cyprus Civil Defence The main mission of the Cyprus Civil Defence Force ( gr, Δύναμη Πολιτικής Άμυνας Κύπρου, tr, Kıbrıs Sivil Savunma Kuvvetleri) is carrying out various humanitarian projects intended to protect the civilian population ...

and other secondary Units, acting as a communications agent between them, so that they do not conduct overlapping searches and waste time by searching areas already searched by other units and in general help all the different units operate as a single larger in numbers unit, eliminating any other problems that might occur when many different units operate without any communications between them. It reports directly to the operational control of the Minister of Defence and it is staffed by qualified personnel of the

, mainly from the branches of the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

and the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

. All logistic and technical support is the responsibility of the Ministry of Communications & Works. Τhe Joint Rescue Coordination Center is located to in the city of Larnaca in a new owned building near of Larnaca Airport.

History

The Cyprus Joint Rescue Coordination Center was established by Law 5(III)/94 and started operating on a trial 24-hour basis on the 7th of August 1995 as an independent unit of the Cyprus Air Force Command.
On March 1, 2002 by decision of the Ministry Cabinet the JRCC undertook formally the responsibility for organizing, coordinating and monitoring, search and rescue operations, in the region that the Republic of Cyprus is responsible for.
The JRCC functioned as such until the 26th of July, 2010. Following the relevant opinion of Attorney General for the provisions of Law 5 (III) / 1994 (on Research - Rescue Ratification Act) JRCC reports directly to the Minister of Defence and operates as an independent agency of the Ministry of Defence.

Cyprus search and rescue region (SRR)

The Cyprus search and rescue region (SRR) coincides with the Nicosia FIR as described in the current Air Navigation Plan of the

International Civil Aviation Organization The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sc ...

(ICAO) as shown below:

Distress frequencies

The internationally established frequencies to be used for Distress and Safety and monitored by Search and Rescue are: * 518 kHz NAVTEX (Maritime safety information) * 121.5 MHz International civil aviation distress frequency * 243.0 MHz International military aviation distress frequency * 156.8 MHz (CH-16) International maritime call and distress frequency * 156.525 MHz (CH-70) * 2187.5 kHz * 4207.5 kHz * 6312.0 kHz * 8414.5 kHz * 12577.0 kHz * 16804.5 kHz * 2182 kHz International maritime call and distress frequency on MF * 406.025 MHz Transmission frequency of EPIRB, ELT and PLB of the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system JRCC Larnaca maintains continued monitoring of the following frequencies: * 121.5 MHz VHF/AM * 134.0 MHz VHF/AM (Common of Initial Contact with JRCC) * 243.0 MHz UHF/AM * 255.0 MHz UHF/AM (Common of Initial Contact with JRCC) * 156.8 MHz (CH-16) VHF/FM * 2182 kHz MF/HF The DSC frequencies mentioned above are monitored by Cyprus Coast Station (Cyprus Radio) * 518 kHz NAVTEX Note that: JRCC uses the

NATO phonetic alphabet The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet, technically a ''radiotelephonic spellin ...

for communicating characters in English and the standard Greek phonetic alphabet () for communicating characters in Greek.

References

{{reflist

External links

*http://www.jrcc-cyprus.mod.gov.cy *http://www.mod.gov.cy Rescue agencies Government agencies established in 1995 Rescue coordination centres

JRCC A rescue co-ordination centre (RCC) is a primary search and rescue facility in a country that is staffed by supervisory personnel and equipped for co-ordinating and controlling search and rescue operations. RCCs are responsible for a geographic are ...

History

Cyprus search and rescue region (SRR)

Distress frequencies

See also

References

External links