PSNI Rescue Boys From Mountain

A police helicopter has been used overnight to pluck a group of teenage boys from a mountain in north Antrim.

The rescue followed a similar dramatic rescue earlier this week in Co Wicklow when the victims also got lost.

The six Co Antrrim boys, aged between 12 and 13, left Ballycastle to walk up Knocklayde mountain at lunchtime on Thursday. They got lost when the weather became wet and foggy.

As with the two male snowboarders lost on the Wicklow mountainside on Tuesday night, a mobile phone was central to a successful outcome as one of the boys in last night's drama used his mobile to call the police for help.

"They were very disorientated. They were wet and cold and did not know where they were," PSNI Sergeant Lorraine Connor told the BBC.

"When they set out the weather was good but it started to rain and the mist started coming in around the top of the mountain," she said, noting that they weren't dressed adequately for the conditions.

"They had no map or walking equipment," she said.

This was a similar scenario to the drama in the Irish Republic during the week as the pair who were snowboarding on Lugnaquilla Mountain were stranded in a near zero visibility as freezing fog rolled in.

Having first lost their map they quickly became lost and disorientated and sent out an SOS, raising the alarm using a mobile phone.

Four helicopters and dozens of personnel drawn from the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as RAF search teams were all involved in the previously successful operation on Lugnaquilla in Co Wicklow.

See: Two Saved As British Military Join Wicklow Rescue

(BMcC/JM)