Naval Craft during an Operation S.A.R. The D.P.R. (Decree of the President of the Republic no. 662, 28.9.94, which ratifies the 1979 Hamburg Convention, has introduced substantial innovations in the field of search and rescue activities at sea organization and coordination within the national area. With this measure sea rescue has taken on the role of an activity to be carried out on the spot, with the means available, involving highly professional operations, with specially equipped crafts and professionally trained crews.
The Regulation seeks to give a new and more functional impetus to the organization of the sector, setting out the respective functions of the interested structures and, specifically, entrusting the ITCG Headquarters, with the task of assuring the efficient organization of search and rescue services in the entire area of sea in question, which extends far beyond the borders of the territorial waters. The Headquarters, in fact, assumes the function of I.M.R.C.C. (Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center), which heads the complex of activities with the aim of search and rescue of human life at sea, with the help of the air-sea component of the ITCG, and with the eventual aid of other military and civil rescue units. The I.M.R.C.C. - is functionally located in the Operational Center of the ITCG Headquarters - maintains contacts with the rescue coordination centers of the other States to assure international cooperation as envisaged by the Hamburg Convention.
The above mentioned decree 662/94 bestows on the current 15 Maritime Directions the function of Secondary Maritime Rescue Centers (M.R.S.C.-Maritime Rescue Sub Center), thus assuring the coordination of maritime search and rescue operations, each within their own jurisdiction, according to specific directives or instructions delegated by the national center (I.M.R.C.C.).
Jurisdictions of the italian M.R.S.C. The Port Commands (Harbourmasters offices, Maritime department offices, and beach delegations) are identified as Coast Guards Units (U.C.G.). The latter arrange the intervention of aero-naval rescue crafts dislocated in the proper jurisdictional area and maintain operative control, unless the I.M.R.C.C. decides otherwise.
The Rescue Sub Centers and the U.C.G. have the faculty of demanding, in case of necessity, the aid of naval and aircrafts belonging to all State organizations or to Private concerns.
In order to apply fully the prescriptions of Hamburg 1979 Convention and the respective Execution Regulation, the I.M.R.C.C. has created a special “Piano S.A.R. Marittimo Nazionale” (National Maritime S.A.R. Plan) approved November 25th, 1996 by the Ministry of Transports and Navigation (now Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports). The document is out in two sections: a preliminary part, which refers to the general and functional organization of the S.A.R. service; and a second part, with local Programs of the 15 M.R.S.C., detailing all available resources and local operative connections.
