There is a post on "Twitter" from a well known AAC unit naming the aircraft type. Don't feel the need to repeat it on here but if you feel the need to know then the info is there.

Here is Paul Beaver, the expert of choice lately for the Beeb, and the same expert who gave a radio interview after the recent Pedro Blackhawk crash in East Anglia. He was touted as an expert and former pilot, but went on to say that the Blackhawk had come down softy and that its blades were still intact !

BBC News - Five UK personnel die in Afghanistan helicopter crash

Sad to see it was a lynx

Just heard this news!!!!! So sad. RIP and thoughts to the families and friends.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news smuj, but in the era of electronic news gathering and 24 hours cable news the "prize" only goes to the first report, not the accurate report. The BBC are just as predatory as CNN or Fox in pi$$ng over the graves of the recently deceased to get the story. If you start by assuming they are all vermin and make the appropriate exceptions you won't go far wrong. That said, if there wasn't an appetite for this type of coverage among the chattering classes and Daily Mail readers it would be less prevalent.

However, I have now become as guilty as the others on this thread in making this story about reprehensible behaviour by those who should know better, rather than the real story of the loss of 5 comrades-in-arms.

RIP.

For all the media bashing, the details of this story had to have come from a serving member of the armed forces who was there to know.

Just watched the BBC news and the assumptions and comments made by the so called Military Specialist are awful!

The press can't be trusted at all:hmm:

I was the Seaking SAR Flt Cdr when the Chinook crashed on an air test. Unfortunately a local saw the crash and rang the UK to say a helicopter had crashed. The BBC then transmitted that a helicopter had crashed in the Falklands. As there were at least 3 types (Chinook, Seaking and S61) operating in theatre this would have caused great distress to any family who had men flying any of these types.

On returning from the SAROP I had to quickly contact 8 families to reassure them that there husbands etc were not involved. Fortunately, due to having up to date next of kin information, I was able to contact everybody before they heard the distressing news via the inconsiderate Falkland Islander and impatient BBC who didn't wait until they had accurate facts.

It is even worse now that information can be spread so quickly, then everything military went through only one source, the satellite dish outside Stanley. Normal troop communication was via the paper bluey:ok:

HF

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience HF, but as a member of the press myself I can assure you that we are not all cut from the same cloth. As in every walk of life, there are good and bad, and some people are just jerks.

Personally, I wouldn't release such information without having all the facts first, but then I don't write for a tabloid and I don't have the pressures of churning out 24/7 news.

Bringing it back to this particular case, like I said the detailed information had to have come from serving military in theatre. Good and bad in all walks...

Hummingfrog

My father was on the same flight as you at the time and my mother remembers the panic she had once she heard the news. She remembers dialling my father and getting the operator stating they couldn't put her through.

Thoughts are with the family at this difficult time.

Not disparaging anyone, but there are more than service personnel serving in theatre Melmothtw

Aware of that Nutloose, but on the balance of probability I'd say that the precise aircraft type and unit details that folks are (rightly) objecting to would have come from UK/NATO military.

Facts don't matter, only the headline. The BBC just showed a Blackhawk and a Chinook. The line was that the lynx was smaller than the Merlin and Chinook. The general public don't know and the press don't care. Try to understand what you are dealing with and don't take it too personally. Even if you complain, they couldn't give a toss.

It's sad, but these stories will always leak out.

With mobile phones, IPads etc almost instantly connecting to the WWW/Facebook/twitter it is only a matter of minutes before somebody back in the UK finds out.

RIP all on board.

RIP fellas. :(

Another five lives wasted in a lost cause as we come to the end of yet another fruitless campaign to add to those this country has fought in that benighted country in the last 150 years or so.

My own son came home safe from his time on ops there - five more sets of parents and loved ones are not going to be so lucky - my heart goes out to them.

Saturday night drinking and typing is never a good idea Gnd. Ranting on an anonymous forum isn't so bad, but please don't follow it up with an email to your boss telling him what you really think...

Words fail me Gnd..

Is Gnd short for Gonad?

R.I.P. guys