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BBC - 11 March 2003 - Tornado attack probe launched.

The Ministry of Defence has begun an inquiry after a woman allegedly damaged a Tornado aircraft at RAF Leuchars in Fife.

A 48-year-old woman is due to appear at Cupar Sheriff Court on Wednesday after the incident. An RAF spokeswoman said it was understood that access had been gained to the base near St Andrews and that a hangar had been entered.

Tornados are among the aircraft being deployed to the Gulf but the aircraft involved is not part of the war preparations.

In a statement later, the MoD said: "We are conducting an inquiry into this incident. It is not acceptable for activists to be able to get in and damage an aircraft. "We will do all that we can to learn lessons from this, obviously security is something of an issue and we will continue to tighten it up, but that costs a huge amount of money."

RAF Leuchars is home to 43 and 111 Squadrons which both fly the Tornado F3 in the air defence role.

Meanwhile, two people have appeared at Cupar Sheriff Court in relation to an incident at RAF Leuchars on Monday. Roz Bullen, 33, from Edinburgh, and Petter Joelson, 22, from Glasgow, face two charges of malicious mischief relating to the perimeter fence and spray painting. They made no plea and were allowed bail.

A small group of anti-war protesters were outside the base on Saturday and were faced by a counter-demonstration staged by families of RAF personnel. Banners were held up by the forces families, urging people to "support our troops".

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“I was the pilot in this video, but did not fly the SR-71 out of RAF Greenham Common. I was the “mobile control” officer when the aircraft departed and the pilot was Maj Jim Jiggens, a USAF Thunderbird pilot and formally a US Army helicopter combat pilot in Vietnam.

On the evening of the air show featured in this video, women, who were protesting President Reagan’s decision to station intermediate nuclear missiles in England, broke into the security cordon around the air show aircraft and threw paint on several, including this SR-71.

Owing to the unique metals associated with the SR-71, the removing of the paint required special maintenance procedures to assure that no “hot spot” would develop on subsequent flights. It was quite a hassle and we were not amused over this incident.

Jim and I planned a farewell departure for the protesters who were encamped in a squalor of tents just outside the main gate. Jim obtained clearance for a “closed pattern” and turned to a downwind leg, descended to about 100 feet above the ground, and flew directly over the protesters’ encampment. It was early and probably most were asleep, but not for long.

Jim was flying about 250 knots and selected afterburner in both engines as he was approaching the tents. As the SR-71 accelerated to 350-400 knots, he pulled up and focused the plume (and noise) directly on the protesters. It was a magnificent sight.

I also had the honor to prefer charges against the women, but the British government later declined to prosecute.”

Lt.Col B.C. Thomas, USAF

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In July of 1985, an SR-71 was flown to [England], on static display for visiting King Hussein of Jordan. The very next day, British nuclear protesters threw paint on the SR-71. There was no permanent damage to the aircraft. Several days later crews flew “low” passes over the protesters tents near [the RAF air base]. Rumor had it that several tents were leveled and hearing problems lasted for hours afterwards.”

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Detached from RAFG, we were warned there was a CND camp outside Lossie and we were to avoid talking to them etc...
First night there sampling the local brew downtown and staggering back past it to see four of our guys in it having a party with some of them.

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Several days later crews flew “low” passes over the protesters tents near [the RAF air base]. Rumor had it that several tents were leveled and hearing problems lasted for hours afterwards.”

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After the trial they were handed back the tools they used to attack the plane, which will presumably be used again for exactly the same purpose at some point in the future. Two of the hammers used at Shannon were also used to take out the B52 in 1991, but Ciaron noted that "they have such respect for private property that they keep giving us this stuff back”.

After the B52, one hammer was sent to England to destroy equipment at British Aerospace that was being used in east Timor and Northern Ireland. The hammers were then given to four women who disabled a Hawk fighter plane worth £2 million, passed on to a priest who used them to disable the nuclear convoy vehicle designed to carry warheads to Faslane naval base, then reunited with Ciaron after almost a decade and used in the Shannon sabotage.

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This is far from the simple conflict depicted by our press

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