Afghan air crash victims named

12 April 2012

The names of the 14 British servicemen killed when their aircraft crashed in Afghanistan have been released by the Ministry of Defence.

The Nato RAF Nimrod MR2 came down 12 miles west of Kandahar in the south of the country on Saturday afternoon.

The reconnaissance aircraft issued an emergency call before disappearing from radar screens, having suffering what was thought to be a technical fault.

All those on board perished, including 12 RAF personnel from RAF Kinloss in Scotland, one Royal Marine and an Army soldier.

The 12 RAF personnel were named as Flt Lt Steven Johnson, Flt Lt Leigh Anthony Mitchelmore, Flt Lt Gareth Rodney Nicholas, Flt Lt Allan James Squires, Flt Lt Steven Swarbrick, Flight Sgt Gary Wayne Andrews, Flight Sgt Stephen Beattie, Flight Sgt Gerard Martin Bell and Flight Sgt Adrian Davies. The remaining three were named as Sgt Benjamin James Knight, Sgt John Joseph Langton, Sgt Gary Paul Quilliam.

The soldier who died was Lance Corporal Oliver Simon Dicketts from the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marine was named as Joseph David Windall.

The crash brings the death toll of British Forces personnel in Afghanistan to 36 since the start of operations in November 2001.

It is the biggest single loss of British troops in Afghanistan or Iraq since the war on terror began.

Moving accolades came from RAF Kinloss in Moray, Scotland, where the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft was based. Station commander, Group Captain Chris Birks, said the air crew had served with the base's 120 Squadron and were "very experienced" in Afghanistan.

Paying tribute, he said: "As well as first class personnel, these were colleagues and friends of myself and my personnel. This is a day no-one ever wants to have to experience. The station is in mourning."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in