This paper investigates if the response times could be reduced if all commercial traffic at sea carried an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that could respond to emergency calls from ships close by. Historical maritime search and rescue incidents in Sweden were studied, using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). For each incident, the closest commercial ship within a UAV’s flying distance was identified, and the corresponding response time for the UAV was compared to the historical response time from land-based resources. It was observed that for the total system, the potential time gains are on average 15 minutes to reach the initial position of the incident if UAVs were widely introduced as required safety equipment on commercial ships.