Tornado Incident 24th Oct 06 (love this) CREW: LT Bullock, LT Ingoldmells, CPOACMN Rendall, S George (Portland Coastguard). On Tuesday the 24th October at around 1120hrs my crew and I took off from RAF Waddington on a medium level Navex of Lincolnshire, onboard we also had a member of Portland coastguard on a liaison flight. After approx 5 minutes flying we where tasked to divert to the scene of an ejection from a Tornado GR4 which had occurred at 1117hrs. The location was on the mudflats of the Wash in the Holbeach area, a vast expanse of tidal mud running along the coast and stretching a couple of miles towards the sea. We had several problems initially in that our CDNU had failed therefore having no NAV aids it made locating the site very difficult, Also the HF radio was not working so we had no direct communication with Kinloss RCC. All information was relayed through London centre, which worked well. The playmate of the downed tornado was orbiting the crash site at 3000ft in order to aid location. We sighted the jet in the orbit which in turn led us to the smoking wreckage, approximately 500 mtrs away we located the two parachutes, initially things looked grim as one of the crew appeared to be laid on his back and motionless, his colleague was about 50 feet away and appeared to be sat up. Lt Bullock landed the aircraft approximately 75 mtrs away from the site, dropping me and the coastguard officer off, before lifting to the orbit, as the mud was too soft to support the aircraft. We made our way to the casualties, I sent the coastguard officer to the worst of the pair as he happened to be a trained medic, I made my way to the navigator who was suffering from back and neck pain, with also a painful left calf. As I approached him I asked how he was, he said, “He had, had better days”. He told me he thought his colleague was alive because he had been waving at him. I went to see how the pilot was, he also had severe back pain with a gash on his forehead and was completely immobile. Both crew members where in a state of shock and showed symptoms of early hypothermia. As we had no stretcher, we therefore could not move either of the crew due to the possible spinal injuries I signalled for the aircraft to land. After passing the state of play to my pilots who in turn relayed the information and exact location and disposition of the incident. I took the FOD shield cover and the crews jackets. We then proceeded to keep the crew warm and comfortable, while we waited for the Leconfield SAR to arrive, which was actually about 20 minutes later. I joked with the pilot that he must be very exited about getting his martin baker tie, he replied, “I haven’t stopped thinking about it!” The Australian navigator borrowed my phone to ring his wife, the conversation went along the lines of “Hello darling, you wouldn’t believe the day I’m having, I am sat in the mud on the wash with my parachute around me, watching my jet burn!” Eventually the two SAR aircraft arrived and winched the two men before departing to Kings Lynn hospital. We carried on with our NAVEX, both crew are reportedly recovering well.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 20:14:41 +0000