Drama in the Sky for Prestwick Crew

[Tom B]

Anyone hear about this?

"THE crew of Prestwick's HMS Gannet have performed a Top Gun-style rescue of a Cessna plane.

The Royal Navy helicopter search and rescue crew were scrambled urgently to the distress call from a US pilot in trouble off Jura, on the west coast.

By the time the Gannet crew reached the small plane - an eight-seater Cessna 206 - the woman was circling around half a mile offshore from Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre, having refused to land at the airstrip there.

And just like the scene from the 80s smash film Top Gun the team told the pilot to 'stay on my wing and I'll guide you in'.

Captain of the Sea King rescue helicopter, Lieutenant Graham Bunney, said: "It's actually not all that easy to guide in a plane like that.

"We would have preferred to fall in behind her and follow her in, but she wanted us to be in view. But we also couldn't fly in front of her, partly because our downwash would have caused her severe turbulence, which ultimately could have flipped an aircraft that size, and partly because we needed to keep clear of her heading."

- http://www.ayradvertiser.com/news/ayr/a ... wick-crew/

[howlsatthemoon]

Read about it in the Sun last week:-

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol ... rport.html

[Kevin Mc]

Don't get that story - did she have a panic attack or something, or did she take over from the proper pilot? Wonder why she refused to land at Machrihanish?

Love the avatar by the way howlsatthemoon