Boeing CH-47 Chinook

A [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] pilot who foiled an assassination attempt on Britain's most important political ally in Afghanistan's Helmand Province has been officially recognised for his valour with the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Flight Lieutenant Alexander Duncan, 32, refused to put his Chinook down, even after a Taliban rocket took out part of one rotor blade.

He battled to keep his helicopter airborne after it was struck by ground fire as he flew the governor of Helmand across the troubled province.


Despite the Chinook losing one hydraulic flight control system and an RPG passing through the rear pylon before striking the rotor and tearing a huge chunk out of one the blades, Duncan — known as "Frenchie" because of his French mother — managed to safely land the aircraft, which contained a VIP party, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Provincial Reconstruction Team and governor Gulab Mangal, a crucial figure in Britain's long-term plan to stabilise Helmand.

Mangal's support for UK forces in the province has been instrumental in securing acceptance of foreign troops among the Afghan population, but that, and his hardline stance against corruption and the opium trade, have made him a prized scalp for the Taliban.

In harm's way


Duncan, from 27 Squadron RAF, was taking his passengers back from Musa Qala to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gar in May last year when he received intelligence from the AAC Apache AH1 crew providing overwatch that Taliban forces were moving weapons along his planned flight path.

He changed his routing at the last minute and dropped to ultra-low level.

He was flying along a dried-up riverbed to avoid detection when the aircraft came under sustained assault from the ground and was hit by RPGs and heavy machine gun and small arms fire.


Aware that his Chinook had been hit due to an uncontrolled lurch of the aircraft, he quickly assessed that he still had sufficient control and manoeuvred to clear the immediate threat area and weigh up his options.

Having lost one hydraulic system and a large portion of a main rotor blade, he decided to return to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Edinburgh, making a safe landing and offloading the VIP party without incident.


Says Duncan: "I saw a Toyota Hilux with a man in the back alongside the wadi. The Hilux is popular with the Taliban, although it later transpired that this wasn't one of theirs.

As it turned out, though, it probably saved our lives by being there. I told the loadmaster: ‘Get yourself on the right-hand minigun, there's someone looking dodgy! And I jinked the aircraft hard left, and as I did so, our flares went off.

The ‘loadie’ shouted: ‘We’ve been hit!’ and the aircraft lurched up and right, even though I'd told it to go left. One of the guys shouted: ‘We've lost a piece of the blade.’ And I thought that was it — we were going down for sure. The aircraft was shaking like crazy.

The pedals, all the controls, were shaking, and my first thought was to put the aircraft down immediately, but then I realised — ‘I have 16 civilians in the back, we've four rifles between us to defend them and us and we're maybe 400 metres from the firing point’ — so I carried on."

Pressing on

"The aircraft felt completely wrong as I was trying to fly her.

The rear was skidding — a real sign of a big imbalance at the back.

It's an amazing aircraft, the Chinook, and given the damage we sustained, I can't believe that we got it back in one piece.

My co-pilot, Alex Townsend, did brilliantly because it was so hard for me to fly that I had no spare capacity. We lost our number two hydraulic system and the AFCS [Auto Flying Control System], so he had to secure those.

“In the back of my mind I knew I had the option of putting the aircraft down. I was really worried about losing the blade, and I made myself little targets — you know, ‘I just want to make it to there!’ Every time I made one, I carried on and just kept telling the guys we’d make it to FOB Edinburgh, and I’d do a baby basic dust landing — basically, minimise any control movements which would damage the blade further.
I wasn’t going to mess around and try to put it anywhere specific, just right in the middle. So I did that, and as soon as the dust cleared, I ordered the guys in the back to get rid of the passengers."

"I remember Coops, one of my loadies, saying: ‘You wanna see the twist on that blade!’ And I still couldn't picture it because I thought we'd taken a .50 cal round.

But there was nothing left of it apart from the leading edge, and the blade was just twisting as it was shutting itself down — a massive chunk of it had completely gone.

When I inspected the aircraft after shutting down, I couldn't believe how she'd stayed aloft.

As well as the RPG passing through the pylon and taking out part of the rotor, we had taken a significant degree of shrapnel damage, seven or eight rounds of .50 cal and some 7.62 mm.

The angle at which the RPG had gone in probably saved our lives.

It was heading square in, but because I'd seen that Toyota Hilux I jinked to the left suddenly, which put an angle on it."

Surveying the damage


"In later analysis, the RPG was identified as being first generation — we were able to tell via cut marks on the rotor which showed the round as having four fins.

The head of the RPG went through the pylon, then it deviated into the blade, and when it hit that, it disintegrated.

Boeing told us that the blade whipped it back round, so we were effectively hit a second time by the RPG, and some of the shrapnel damage we took was caused by its outer casing coming in. It was that that nicked a hydraulic pipe — just the tiniest bit.

But the hydraulic system is pressurised to 3,000 psi, so we lost the lot within a second.

There you are, no hydraulics, just to make life a bit more interesting!

Also, one of the .50 cal rounds hit the gearbox, but it hit a big round nut and didn't go in — it just bounced off and disappeared.

If it had hit straight on, it would have jammed the gearbox and destroyed it. "
"We were so lucky; I'm not at all superstitious but there were so many bizarre twists of fate that not only put us in that position in the first place, but also allowed us to escape.

In another twist, our aircraft, 575, took rounds in Iraq — 576 was the Chinook that went down in the Mull of Kintyre. With the VIPs we had in the back, if we'd gone down, we would once again have lost an aircraft's worth of VIPs."

DH

RAF personnel have been honoured in the Armed Forces Operational Awards that have been announced today for their bravery in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in search and rescue missions around the UK.

Report by Steve Willmot.Flight Lieutenants Kevin Harris and Alex 'Frenchie' Duncan have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross which is awarded to all ranks of the Services in recognition of exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy in the air.

Flt Lt Lee Turner and Master Aircrewman Richard Taylor have both been honoured for their actions during the same search and rescue mission and Corporal Simon Oswald from the RAF Regiment is Mentioned in Despatches for taking command of a hostile situation in Afghanistan.
They are among 13 RAF personnel who have been honoured in the Operational Awards List covering the period April to September 2008,

Pilot Flt Lt Alex 'Frenchie' Duncan


Pilot Flt Lt Alex 'Frenchie' Duncan of 27 Squadron, based at RAF Odiham, was the captain of a Chinook twin-rotor helicopter involved in two distinct operations in Afghanistan last year.

On 17 May 2008 he was part of a three-aircraft formation tasked to fly a VIP party, including the Governor of Helmand province, from Lashkar Gah to Musa Qaleh.
Whilst flying at ultra-low level the aircraft came under sustained assault from the ground and was hit by rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), heavy machine gun (HMG) and small arms fire.

Aware that his aircraft had been hit due to an uncontrolled lurch of the aircraft he quickly assessed that he still had sufficient control and manoeuvred to clear the immediate threat area and weigh up his options.


Having lost one hydraulic system and a large portion of a main rotor blade he decided to return to Forward Operating Base Edinburgh, making a safe landing and offloading the VIP party without incident.

Flt Lt Duncan said:

"We were running up to the landing site and 20 feet [6m] off the ground when I felt a lurch and heard a bang.

I thought I'd lost the aircraft but although it was shaking I found I still had control. We decided to get out of there fast - we had 16 passengers on board.

The five to six mile [8 - 9.7km] flight to where we landed the Chinook was the longest journey of my life.

We considered landing half way there but the risk of coming under further attack with so many civilians on board I decided wasn't a good idea. We were very, very lucky to get to the forward operating base and when I saw the hole at the back and the torn rotor blade I couldn't believe we made it."

Just six days later,

Flt Lt Duncan was part of a four-aircraft, two-wave night air assault around Musa Qaleh in support of 2 Para Battle Group that was gauged to be opposed by insurgents.

The lead pair of aircraft was engaged by RPG, HMG and small arms.

Flt Lt Duncan led the second pair into the hostile area and departed before returning to lead the second wave into a second hostile landing site under continued engagement by enemy firepower.


The Army's Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, who congratulated awards recipients yesterday, said:

"Throughout both events Flt Lt Duncan displayed consummate professionalism and strength of character, in the first instance taking immediate and appropriate action to recover a badly hit aircraft with a VIP party on board, and in the second pressing ahead an air assault in the face of intense fire to ensure the force protection of the battle group troops. His actions, bravery and stoicism are worthy of formal recognition."