[onion2k]

Part of that could be that emergency services funding has been cut so much that the UK emergency services have to replace people with tech wherever possible, and sometimes where not so possible too. If you can't get 20 people together for a search then 1 drone is the next best alternative.

[closewith]

I think it's more likely that SAR is almost exclusively charity-funded in the UK and so the teams are more likely to promote the individual rescues are part of fund-raising.

It's not a new phenomenon, either. The RNLI has operated without government funding for 199 years.