One of the major responsibilities of the GFS lies with SAR operations. Although the area of responsibility covers the majority of the South China Sea up to 1300 km south of Hong Kong, most of the search and rescue operations take place within 400 nautical miles of Hong Kong.
The Challenger 605 (CL605) aircraft are used as initial search and rescue aircraft for all long range and off shore SAR operations. It will be the first to arrive at the scene and act as on-scene commander. It will then guide the Airbus H175 Helicopter to the scene to winch up the casualties, or seek assistance from other merchant ships in the vicinity if the location of the scene is outside the operational range of the Airbus H175 Helicopter.
In-shore search and rescue operations are also carried out using the Airbus H175 Helicopter. Dawn searches for lost or injured hikers and climbers are very frequent. Such operations sometimes require the winching of people from inaccessible places in the rocky hills of the New Territories or from the many outlying islands, often under bad weather conditions.
Both during and following a typhoon or other natural disasters, the GFS is kept extremely busy. Apart from search and rescue operations, the department will carry government officers to survey flooding and damages to property and crops, as well as air-lift supplies and fly casualties to hospital.
Reconnaissance flights after a typhoon are designed to pinpoint areas in need of help as soon as the weather improves. Relief flights will be carried out accordingly.