F15 CRASHES IN SEA OF FLAMBOROUGH HEAD YORKSHIRE

[Gil Boyd]

Bit of useless information this.................as a past Police Diver, we were taught in Cambridgeshire to recover downed pilots from jet aircraft operatiing in the County.

Back then, RAF Wyton had Canberras/Nimrods etc and USAF Alconbury had F4 Phantoms and F5's operating from there, also a host of others operating from RAF Lakenheath and Mildenhall with various fighter jets includingt he F15, so we were trained to get the pilots out of their seats on simulators with a fully charged and operating seat under water in nil visibility where they hadn't banged out for whatever reason as the County was full of deep open water pits, rivers and reservoirs.

We went on several Martin Baker and other courses to achieve this safely.

The Royal Navy Clearance divers at the time didn't have the training to do this which was ironic, because when the Freedom of Free Enterprise ferry tipped over at Zeebrugge a few years later, we were on the RAF airfield with an RAF Sea King with all our kit waiting for the go to assist the dutch with underwater rescues of passengers.

Ironically, the British Government cancelled us, who were trained in search and recovery of dead bodies and the Royal Navy Clearance Divers went instead. To this day never understood that decision!!
Later we learnt many had PTSD following harrowing tales of recovering bodies underwater.

That was our bread and butter job and sadly we became climatised to it, as our job was really a forensic underwater recovery and examination as the Police. I had when I retired recovered with a 5 man team operating in this County 342 bodies underwater from every disaster you can imagine.
I hope he banged out in this case and hope he's still not in his seat for whatever reason!