I can explain the confusion here - the DT aviation correspondent fulfilled the job's qualification requirement by declaring he had once seen an aviation-related film.
The film in question was "The Perfect Storm", which has a few minutes of an SAR helicopter in it. The helicopter is undergoing inflight refuelling, and it has to go just a bit faster in order to keep up with the tanker. So, the pilot rams the "throttle" forward, slamming it into the instrument panel.
Several times.
It was one of those American films "based on a true story". The facts were: a boat set out to sea; there was a storm; the boat was never seen again. Everything else, except the helicopter bit, of course, was pure imagination.