Mr. Brendan Cahill:

I carried out a test of the Rescue 400 life jackets with my unit while on a boat exercise on 27 October 2019. In the course of that test, the four life jackets that were tested failed to function correctly. I immediately withdrew the unit from boat operations. I contacted a senior member of the marine management for the Coast Guard. He immediately grounded the boat. Within three days, all boat units in the Coast Guard were grounded. I submitted the life jackets to Coast Guard headquarters for testing, having ensure that a chain of evidence was available, with no interference with the life jackets. They were forwarded to headquarters as they had malfunctioned. As a result, all boat units were grounded and until such time as an acceptable replacement for those life jackets was in place, boat operations were suspended.