Prince William on his time as a search and rescue pilot: ‘I miss this life’

During an engagement during his last day in Cape Town, South Africa, Prince William reminisced about his time as a search and rescue helicopter pilot.

On November 7, the Prince of Wales, 42, met with volunteers working for the National Seas Rescue Institute (NSRI). He heard about their lifesaving work and asked them what inspired them to get involved. According to The mirrorBefore getting on a lifeboat, the future king asked how choppy the water was and, as he put on a life jacket, he joked that he might have to wear more gear so he didn’t get wet.

“Beautiful windy day today!” he joked. “How are the seas today? It’s quite choppy!”

As he took to the water in the lifeboat, the outlet reported that after being asked if he had ever done search and rescue work, he said, “I miss this life. I’ll take any chance to come back.”

Prince William trained as a search and rescue helicopter pilot at RAF Valley in Anglesey, North Wales, from 2010 to 2013, then worked as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance from March 2015 to July 2017.

Prince William also got the chance on November 7 mingle with the well-wishers gathered to meet him. “I love Cape Town”, he said per The mirror. “I had the most wonderful week here. I really enjoyed it. I don’t want to go!”

After arriving in South Africa on November 4, the Prince of Wales hosted the fourth Earthshot Prize Awards ceremony on November 6, with four days of engagements ahead of his departure on November 7.

“My children would like to be here, just like Catherine,” William said of his wife during a walk Kate Middleton and their three children.

Elsewhere in the day he revealed he was trying to teach his three children Prince George11, Princess Charlotte9, and Prince Louis6, about tidal waves. “We try to teach the children to understand currents,” said the prince. “The problem with cracks is that you don’t know where they will appear.”

He also discussed the importance of swimming lessons, saying: “As Britain is an island, we all need to know how to swim. It is a life skill that could save your life one day.”

In 2009, Prince William joined C Flight, 22 Squadron as a Lieutenant Wales and served as a search and rescue pilot for three years. During that time he took part in 156 search and rescue operations, a routine operational deployment to the Falkland Islands and qualified as an operational captain, according to his statement. official royal biography.

He left operational duties in the armed forces in September 2013, just two months after the birth of his eldest child, Prince George. He later retrained as an Air Ambulance Pilot and worked for East Anglian Air Ambulance from 2015 to 2017.

While he may miss work, it hasn’t always been easy.

During a conversation in 2021 on Apple Fitness+ Time to walkhe spoke about his own mental health issues while doing the work.

“The moment I started the helicopter training, I realized it was better than anything else. It was one of those things where I immediately started working on it and thought, ‘This is really cool.’ I really enjoyed it,” said William.

During his work, the prince faced “difficult situations”, including “seeing patients and families torn apart almost every day” and encountering “some things in life that you don’t really want to see”.

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It was his work in search and rescue as an air ambulance helicopter pilot that inspired him to focus on supporting mental health and wellbeing as a cornerstone of his royal work. “We know that mental health has long been a taboo and stigma around the world. And it still is,” he said on the show. “I would like to think that in Britain, here and in the US, it’s being talked about a lot more, and it’s opening up more and more. But there is still a deep-seated fear of understanding it. And we all have to go through a process of understanding why, rather than just giving in to those feelings and saying, “Listen, it’s me. I’m the problem.’ That’s not it. It’s really not you.”

“And you’re not alone, and that’s okay. It’s what you do next that matters. It’s about having that courage, that openness and that strength to say, ‘It’s going to be a long journey. It won’t be easy, but I will get there,” he added.

To that end, as he ended his trip to South Africa on November 7, Prince William took part in an emotional, candid interview in which he admitted that 2024 was “brutal” and “The most difficult year of my life.”