Three Royal Navy aviators were killed in a helicopter crash in rural Devon on Wednesday morning, the latest fatal accident for the British Armed Forces in recent weeks.
A Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Merlin Mk-IV helicopter crashed in a field on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, early on Wednesday morning. Images from the scene on Sourton Down near Ocehampton show the remains of the airframe spread over a small area but that much appeared to have been destroyed by fire.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Ministry of Defence confirmed that three people had been killed in the crash, which took place during a helicopter training exercise. The families of the deceased Royal Navy personell had been informed and there would be a delay before they were publicly identified for a “period of grace”, the statement said.
File Photo: Merlin helicopter launch practice torpedoes in the Falmouth Bay area. Picture: Royal Navy 2014 / POA(Phot) Paul A’Barrow
The professional head of the Royal Navy, the First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins said in his own statement that he was deeply saddened by the deaths and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. The First Sea Lord said an investigation into the cause of the crash had been launched.
The Merlin, the British service name for the Anglo-Italian medium-lift AgustaWestland AW101, is one of two helicopter platforms presently operated by the Royal Navy and comes in two variations. The Mk-II is a specialist submarine hunter, while the Mk-IV — the type lost today — is a Royal Marine Commando transport variant.
The Royal Navy uses the sparsely populated Devon countryside for helicopter education daily and frequently operates at very low altitudes for training pilots and crew. The crash is between the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm’s two airbases at RNAS Yeovilson in South Someset and RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall.
The Times reports there was heavy rain, wind, and poor visibility early Wednesday morning when the helicopter crashed. Their report cites an eyewitness whose home was in visual range of the crash site. They told the paper:
It sounded as if the helicopter was not right as it flew over the house. It was so low it almost took the roof of the house off. The house really shook and there was a huge bang shortly afterwards.
We get a lot of loud noises here and I didn’t think too much about it at the time. It was only when we got up an hour or so later that we found the roads swarming with emergency vehicles. And when we looked over the hill you could see the remains of the helicopter. The land was scarred by the accident and wreckage strewn over the field.
Today’s three fatalities are the latest suffered by the British Armed Forces in recent weeks. A British soldier who killed in what was called a training accident in Iraq at the weekend has now been named as Lance Corporal James Freeman. On Tuesday, the funeral for Royal Horse Artillery Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan took place in London after she was killed in a horse fall on May 15th.
A Sky News report notes Sullivan was an experienced jockey who had qualified as a regimental advanced regimental riding instructor and who had been deployed at the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
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