Great Rescue Operations Quiz – Printable Version
20 multiple-choice questions with an explained answer key, ready to print.
Print the sheet (or save it as a PDF from the print window), hand it out, then mark it together using the answer page: every answer is explained. Perfect for a party, a birthday, a classroom, a care home or a team activity.
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- How did Chilean rescuers learn, 17 days after the San José mine collapse, that the 33 miners were alive?
- A. From a phone call from the mine
- B. Thanks to a dog that had sniffed them out
- C. From a written note tied to the tip of a drill probe: 'We are fine in the shelter, the 33'
- D. From smoke rising from the ground
- Why were the Chilean miners wearing sunglasses as they stepped out of the capsule after 69 days underground?
- A. To hide their tears from the cameras
- B. Because a sponsor required it
- C. To protect against dust
- D. To protect their eyes, used to darkness, from daylight
- How did divers bring out of the flooded Tham Luang cave, in Thailand, children who couldn't dive?
- A. By pumping all the water out of the cave
- B. By digging a tunnel from above
- C. Sedated, wearing full-face masks, each carried by an experienced diver
- D. By teaching them to dive in one day
- Roughly how much time passed between US Airways Flight 1549's take-off and its landing on the Hudson in January 2009?
- A. About 1 hour
- B. About 6 minutes
- C. About 30 seconds
- D. About 20 minutes
- Why did none of the 155 people on Flight 1549 die of cold after landing in the icy Hudson?
- A. The water was heated by a power plant
- B. A helicopter lifted everyone out in a minute
- C. The plane floated to the bank
- D. Ferries and harbour boats arrived within minutes, while passengers stood on the wings
- What technique was used to reach Baby Jessica, stuck in a well barely 20 cm wide?
- A. Widening the well with dynamite
- B. Pulling her up with a magnet
- C. Digging a parallel shaft, then a horizontal tunnel to her
- D. Flooding the well to float her up
- Which famous dog from the Great St Bernard Pass is said to have saved some forty people in the early 19th century?
- A. Barry
- B. Rin Tin Tin
- C. Lassie
- D. Laika
- How was Italian climber Claudio Corti rescued from the North Face of the Eiger in 1957?
- A. A rescuer was lowered on a steel cable several hundred metres long from the summit and hauled him up on his back
- B. A helicopter landed on the face
- C. Food was dropped to him until spring
- D. He abseiled down alone
- Why do swift-water rescuers throw a rope from the bank rather than diving in to reach the victim?
- A. Because the water is always too cold to swim
- B. Jumping into the current risks having two victims instead of one
- C. Because the law forbids swimming
- D. Because ropes are faster than swimmers
- Who, for the most part, are the SNSM rescuers who go out to sea off the French coast?
- A. Career military personnel
- B. Municipal police officers
- C. Volunteers
- D. Private port employees
- In an aircraft ditching, why must you wait until you're outside before inflating your life jacket?
- A. Because it only works in open air
- B. Inflated inside, it could pin you against the ceiling if the cabin floods
- C. To save gas
- D. Because it's too bulky for the aisle
- In January 2024, how many of the 379 people on a burning Japan Airlines Airbus A350, after a collision at Haneda Airport, survived?
- A. About half
- B. About ten
- C. All 379
- D. None
- Which device, developed with NASA, can detect the heartbeats of people buried under rubble?
- A. A giant stethoscope
- B. A weather satellite
- C. A metal detector
- D. The FINDER radar, used notably after the 2015 Nepal earthquake
- Why is entering a grain silo while it is being emptied so dangerous?
- A. Grain is toxic to touch
- B. It's too hot inside
- C. Grain flows like quicksand and can bury a person in seconds
- D. The rats are aggressive
- How many days after the 1906 Courrières mining disaster did thirteen survivors manage to get out by themselves?
- A. 2 days
- B. 6 months
- C. 1 year
- D. 20 days
- What are the French fire brigade teams specialising in rescues at height and in dangerous environments, such as a crane or pylon, called?
- A. RAID
- B. SAMU
- C. GRIMP
- D. BAC
- Which film tells the true story of a hiker trapped alone by a boulder in a Utah canyon in 2003, who had to save himself?
- A. 'Cast Away'
- B. '127 Hours'
- C. 'Into the Wild'
- D. 'Gravity'
- Which operation evacuated more than 330,000 Allied soldiers from Dunkirk in 1940, with the help of hundreds of small civilian boats?
- A. Operation Overlord
- B. Operation Barbarossa
- C. Operation Dynamo
- D. Operation Desert Storm
- How were the survivors of the 1972 crash of a Uruguayan plane in the Andes finally rescued after 72 days?
- A. A satellite spotted the wreck
- B. Two of them crossed the mountains on foot for ten days and found a Chilean herdsman
- C. A search plane saw them by chance on day one
- D. They built a balloon
- How did the Allies supply West Berlin, cut off from all roads by the Soviet blockade of 1948-1949?
- A. Through a tunnel under the wall
- B. By submarines on the Spree
- C. By an airlift: planes landed day and night, sometimes every few minutes
- D. By dropping nothing but sweets
Answer key — Great Rescue Operations Quiz
- C. From a written note tied to the tip of a drill probe: 'We are fine in the shelter, the 33'The miners had survived by rationing food meant for a few days: two spoonfuls of tuna every other day.
- D. To protect their eyes, used to darkness, from daylightAfter more than two months in dim artificial light, sudden exposure to the Atacama Desert sun could have damaged their sight.
- C. Sedated, wearing full-face masks, each carried by an experienced diverThe passages, sometimes very narrow and fully flooded, made it impossible for panicking children to swim out.
- B. About 6 minutesLess than two minutes after leaving LaGuardia, the Airbus hit a flock of geese and lost both engines.
- D. Ferries and harbour boats arrived within minutes, while passengers stood on the wingsThe first ferry pulled up to the plane about four minutes after it landed.
- C. Digging a parallel shaft, then a horizontal tunnel to herThe rescuers, helped by miners and oil drillers, hit very hard rock that slowed the work.
- A. BarryThe hospice canons bred dogs to accompany travellers and find people lost in the snow.
- A. A rescuer was lowered on a steel cable several hundred metres long from the summit and hauled him up on his backIt was the first major cable rescue on the formidable North Face.
- B. Jumping into the current risks having two victims instead of oneThe current of a river in flood is surprisingly powerful, and submerged obstacles can trap a swimmer.
- C. VolunteersFrance's national sea rescue society, founded in 1967, has several thousand volunteers spread across stations all along the coast, in mainland France and overseas.
- B. Inflated inside, it could pin you against the ceiling if the cabin floodsIf the cabin floods quickly, an inflated jacket floats upwards and stops you diving down to reach an exit.
- C. All 379On landing the plane collided with a coast guard aircraft, five of whose crew died.
- D. The FINDER radar, used notably after the 2015 Nepal earthquakeThis microwave radar picks up the tiny chest movements caused by heartbeat and breathing through several metres of debris.
- C. Grain flows like quicksand and can bury a person in secondsAs a silo empties from the bottom, it creates a funnel that sucks down everything above it.
- D. 20 daysThe coal-dust explosion killed about 1,100 people, Europe's worst mining disaster.
- C. GRIMPThe 'Hazardous Environment Search and Intervention Group' masters rope techniques drawn from mountaineering and caving.
- B. '127 Hours'Aron Ralston, his arm pinned by a boulder, was stuck for more than five days without having told anyone his route.
- C. Operation DynamoSurrounded by the German army, British and French soldiers waited on the beaches.
- B. Two of them crossed the mountains on foot for ten days and found a Chilean herdsmanThe official search had been called off after a few days. Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, without proper equipment, crossed snowy peaks before meeting a muleteer.
- C. By an airlift: planes landed day and night, sometimes every few minutesFor nearly eleven months, American and British aircraft delivered food, coal and medicine to more than two million people.