The Helicopter Searches for Nikki
I spent a lot of time on flight tracking site ADS-B Exchange during the search for Nicola Bulley (is it becoming obvious how much I love data?!) Months ago, I took some notes about the helicopter routes taken, and I screenshotted maps from ADS-B. The good thing about this particular flight tracking site is how easy it is to review archived flight paths (for free). You can go to the replay feature for the Lancashire area here and enter the date and time, then choose the speed at which you want to review the flights.
The police helicopters involved have the registrations G-POLB, G-POLC and G-POLG. I won't be getting into detail about the findings of Chris and Ivy regarding what happened on the Saturday before Nikki was found and the Sunday she was found, or rather what I think (it's an aspect of this case I still haven't spent time wrapping my head around). This is simply to provide a record of the helicopter searches that happened, with maps. What can all these searches (or lack of searches) tell us? I'll leave that to you to decide, but I will provide some thoughts and opinions along the way, and at the end.
DAY 1 OF SEARCH: Friday, January 27
Note: Calling this day 1 although that technically makes the day she was found day 24.
G-POLC first flies over St. Michael's on Wyre starting at around 1:10PM local time. The helicopter flies slightly west of St. Michael's that afternoon but the search is concentrated on St. Michael's, over the bench area and its immediate surroundings. I searched on ADS-B at night as well over these first few days, hoping I might see some heat-seeking helicopter searches. But...nothing. At least, nothing with a call sign.
DAY 2 OF SEARCH: Saturday, January 28
No helicopter activity. I triple-checked this again this morning just to make sure this could possibly be true. But yeah, no helicopter search the second day. Obviously there were divers and boats in the water during this time, and volunteers and SAR teams on foot.
DAY 3 OF SEARCH: Sunday, January 29
G-POLC flies over Skippool in afternoon, and toward the coast around Stanah. It does not fly near St. Michael's on Wyre, and according to my research, there was no other helicopter search activity that day. Why this area? And so soon? What kind of modeling could have suggested she would be that far by day 3? Or was the focus on this area somehow connected to the "irrelevant" search of the Skippool Creek car park on Feb 3?
DAY 4 OF SEARCH: Monday, January 30
G-POLC does a very detailed search over the weir and St. Michael's area in the early afternoon. Then it searches west toward the area Nikki was eventually found, and beyond (all the way out to sea, and back).
Again with the focus along the shoreline near Skippool. Why? Why did the search include St. Michael's and the Skippool area and the ocean on day 4? If Snowden is trying to get us to believe the police "predicted" the day and location Nikki was found, how does this helicopter search tactic make any sense?
DAY 5 OF SEARCH: Tuesday, January 31
No helicopter activity (except for a TV helicopter).
DAY 6 OF SEARCH: Wednesday, February 1
No helicopter activity.
DAY 7 OF SEARCH: Thursday, February 2
No helicopter activity.
DAY 8 OF SEARCH: Friday, February 3
No helicopter activity. This is also the day of the press conference with Sally Riley (mentioning the Fitbit for the first time, different description of clothing), the day of the forensic search of the Skippool Creek carpark, and the day PA released a voice memo to Sky.
Odd, to say the least, that there were no searches from January 31-Feb 3. Why? Again, what was the "modeling" that said let's not do any aerial searches at all for four days?
DAY 9 OF SEARCH: Saturday, February 4
A busy day.
G-POLB does a detailed morning river search around the weir and all the way west to Stanah (shown in image below).
G-POLB also does an afternoon search from Stanah to the ocean and, briefly, flies slightly west of Great Eccleston (near-ish the area Nikki would be found).
G-CCDX airplane circles east of the weir, west of Great Eccleston, out to sea, then goes back, circling west of Great Eccleston, through St. Michael's and south where it lands (image below). I do not know who owns this airplane or what it was doing. If anyone wants to dig into that, let me know what you find. EDIT: Once again the intrepid Olivia on Twitter has uncovered that this was a volunteer pilot helping the search.
G-NWAA (?) helicopter circles that afternoon between Stanah and Little Thornton. I have no idea what this helicopter is associated with or what it was doing. But recall the sort-of-nearby Skippool "suspicious vehicle" search was the day before.
DAY 10 OF SEARCH: Sunday, February 5
No helicopter activity.
DAY 11 OF SEARCH: Monday, February 6
G-IPJF, a non-police helicopter, lands near the weir (Faulding's, I presume. It is not a TV helicopter). It does not do an air search.
DAY 12 OF SEARCH: Tuesday, February 7
No helicopter activity.
DAY 13 OF SEARCH: Wednesday, February 8
No helicopter activity.
DAY 14 OF SEARCH: Thursday, February 9
No helicopter activity.
DAY 15 OF SEARCH: Friday, February 10
No helicopter activity. Again, what is with the four-day gap? And how does this correlate with police's alleged tidal modeling, or re-float predictions of a body that they believed had been in the water this whole time? Considering the river was and is so shallow, why wasn't there a helicopter or drone up there every single day?
DAY 16 OF SEARCH: Saturday, February 11
G-POLG does a long, thorough search along the river apparently starting from Stanah, moving east to St. Michael’s.
DAY 17 OF SEARCH: Sunday, February 12
EDIT: ADDITIONAL FLIGHT: G-POLC does a morning search, first landing in a field near Preesall, then searching at the sea by Fleetwood and continuing upstream around Stanah. (Thanks @Olivia V on Twitter for catching this one!) Olivia reported some chatter on Facebook that I'd never seen before of a woods and/or land search happening that morning around Preesall/Pilling.
G-POLB does a concentrated river search over Stanah, Little Thornton and Skippool in the afternoon. It does not go east toward Great Eccleston or St. Michael's except as part of its route to and from the airport.
What is with this area? Why the focus on here? Is it based on "modeling" again, or tips? Is it related to the Feb 3 car park incident? I can't make sense of this "strategy." Can you?
DAY 18 OF SEARCH: Monday, February 13
No helicopter activity.
DAY 19 OF SEARCH: Tuesday, February 14
No helicopter activity.
DAY 20 OF SEARCH: Wednesday, February 15
G-POLC lands next to the the Larbreck caravan site in the early afternoon, but does no searching. Later, it briefly flies over the river, west to east, to St. Michael's and then south. But there is no lingering or circling. The photo below is when the helicopter was landing.
DAY 21 OF SEARCH: Thursday, February 16
No helicopter activity.
DAY 22 OF SEARCH: Friday, February 17
G-POLC does a search above the Great Eccleston area, west of where Nikki would be found two days later, in the afternoon. Interesting that suddenly in the two days before she was found there is focus on this area, which is about 2 miles from the bench. What brought the helicopter here? Why the focus on Skippool, Stanah, etc in preceding days, and all of a sudden it's focusing on the Great Eccleston area? Was this all based on tides? Or tips? Or just whimsy?
DAY 23 OF SEARCH: Saturday, February 18
G-POLG does another search of the Great Eccleston area, west of, but not far from, where Nikki would be found the next day (star marks the location where she was found). Now I'm just repeating myself, but why? Why the sudden focus on this area?
EDIT: A fellow follower of this case just emailed me with a FOI-requested list of the G-POLC and G-POLG flights for February 18 and 19 and it looks like this one (pictured below) was not related to Nikki's case—at least that's what the descriptions in the FOI request suggest. It's important to note, and I should have said this before, if we had records for all the searches from January 27-February 19 we might find that some of the ones I've listed here weren't related. Other things were going on, of course. But then if you're inclined to think this whole thing was a cover-up, well...those FOI descriptions are moot.
DAY 24 OF SEARCH: Sunday, February 19
G-POLG is called out to search over the Rawcliffe Road location where Nikki was (apparently) found by Jason Rothwell and his friend.
I'd be interested to know how much the helicopter search activity is examined or brought up during the ongoing College of Policing investigation. What was the strategy?
Just to sum up, the aerial search included the ocean, very early on. It included Skippool/Stanah/Little Thornton an awful lot, with no public explanation as to why. There were many seemingly crucial days during week one and week two when no helicopter searches happened at all. Then, in the three days before Nikki is found, there is suddenly a concentration on the Great Eccleston area just slightly downstream from where her body was found. Why? Does any of this make sense? Would love to hear everyone's thoughts and theories after seeing all this laid out. Thanks for reading.