Drunk soldiers had sex in £100m Apache helicopter
Computer error reveals air safety report from 2016 describing rear cockpit encounter that was ‘naked from the waist down’
Larisa Brown, Defence Editor
Thursday November 14 2024, 12.00pm GMT, The Times
Ground crew grew suspicious when they heard noises from the Apache when they wanted to fit rain covers
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Two serving soldiers were caught having sex in the cockpit of an Apache attack helicopter, an air safety report has shown.
The individuals, who were believed to have been drunk, were found naked from the waist down by ground crew who approached the helicopter, known as a flying tank, to fit rain covers. The ground crew became suspicious after hearing noises and seeing the rotors swaying up and down.
The incident took place at the Otterburn range in Northumberland in 2016 but has only been made public recently, thanks to a computer glitch. A source told The Sun that an “information management system automatically closed out a legacy report”.
The two soldiers, who were not authorised to be in the helicopter because they were from a different unit, were in the rear of the two-seater AH-64 gunship that belonged to the 653 Squadron of the Army Air Corps.
A brief air safety report to the Military Aviation Authority said: “It became apparent that the rear cockpit was occupied by two people engaged in sexual intercourse. Both were naked from the waist down — the male in uniform, the female in civilian attire. They were ordered to exit the cockpit and get dressed.
“Both parties were serving soldiers. Both showed symptoms of intoxication … They were detained until the chain of command of 653 Squadron and their parent unit arrived.”
Designed to find and destroy air defence units, tanks and armoured vehicles, Apache helicopters are armed with a 30mm chain gun, 70mm rockets and Hellfire missiles.
They have a distinctive Longbow radar above the main rotor blades that can detect and classify up to 256 potential targets, display 128 of them to the crew and prioritise the top 16 threats in seconds. An Apache can cost more than £100 million.
An army source told The Times that the soldiers’ behaviour was “entirely inappropriate” but pointed out that the incident had happened more than eight years ago.
As a result of the incident, air crew were ordered to secure the helicopters so that no unauthorised people could enter them. It is not clear whether the two soldiers were disciplined.
In June 2022, hundreds of paratroops were banned from a deployment to the Balkans as punishment after videos surfaced of an orgy taking place at a military barracks.
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the then head of the army, said in a letter to generals and commanding officers that he was not willing to “risk the mission or the reputation of the British army” by sending them overseas.
Eight paratroops had been placed under police investigation after being filmed having a consensual orgy with a civilian woman.
The Royal Military Police was called in after sex tapes were circulated showing the woman having sex with the men from 16 Air Assault Brigade as dozens of others watched on
It was believed she had been smuggled into Merville Barracks in Colchester, Essex, as many as 31 times in five months, roughly once every five days.
In February 2021 it emerged a Royal Navy officer was under investigation after being caught making indecent films with her partner, a leading seaman, at the Clyde naval base in Faslane.
The 29-year-old, who commanded a team of sailors on HMS Artful, the Astute-class nuclear submarine, was accused of selling the content on an adult website.
