"BOLTED TOGETHER"
A Royal Air Force Chinock helicopter takes part in training exercise
THE Ministry of Defence admitted last night that an RAF Chinook helicopter flown in
Officials earlier denied the hybrid had been operational in the Middle East.
The aircraft was made up from two others – one which crashed in 1999 and one taken from the Argentinians during the Falklands war. The two parts were fused together – a “cut and shut” technique often used illegally by dodgy car dealers – and the aircraft went back into service in 2003.
The MoD statement followed an embarrassing disclosure by former Defence Secretary John Hutton in a letter to Ian Sadler, whose 21-year-old son Jack was killed in Afghanistan in December 2007. Mr Sadler, of Exmouth, Devon, said he was told about the hybrid helicopter by a soldier who claims he had been inside it in Afghanistan within the last year and that it had two different identification numbers.
The MoD would not confirm its whereabouts. But last night a spokesperson said: “We argue it’s a good use of resources.”
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I was struggling to remember the phrase 'cut & shut' until I came to that point in your post.
18 July 2009 at 05:00Motor Insurers flatly refuse to insure such vehicles so why should the MOD regard the practise, when applied to helicopters, as 'making good use of resources' ?
Making death traps is more likely.
It just gets worse and worse. Did they but it from Arthur Daley?
18 July 2009 at 09:58I feel a post coming on.
I really, really hate to defend the government, especially on helos in Afghanistan. However this is probably a non-story, typical press misunderstanding of what they're writing about. Impossible to tell without more details about the repair.
18 July 2009 at 14:52A lot of bloggers have picked this one up, so I felt it necessary to post on the issue, with much more detail on why I think the papers have this one wrong.
Sorry.
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