We'd been on an all nighter out of Ballykelly in a Shackleton MK2 shadowing a Kotlin SAM in the most horrendous weather with line squall after line squall, and we'd had a largish incident involving a massive down draught while passing through the line of least resistance of one such squall. We were only at the usual 1000ft and I don't know how low and close we went - and I don't want to know.
The inside of the aeroplane was total carnage with quite a lot of damage and with quite a few bruises amongst the chaps.
As a result we instantly gave up chasing the Russian ship and set course back to BK where the weather was the exact opposite -just beautiful -and I and a couple of others walked back from the aeroplane to flying clothing with a skylark whistling and twittering away overhead in calm winds and CAVOK. I felt quite good to be alive that morning and got out of my immersion suit and the thick green thermals and stood in the shower for what seemed about an hour.
I seem to recall that aeroplane didn't fly again and was stripped out and burned.
I left BK the same week destined for St Mawgan and the Nimrod OCU while the rest of my crew went to MDSU at Honington.