Operation Glacier text

The UK's Ministry of Defence has released some shots of an
Apache-borne attempt to recover a missing Marine in Afghanistan -
and I'm about to post them here for anyone who's interested.

In brief, a Royal Marine - Lance Corporal Mathew Ford of 45
Commando - was found to be missing during Operation Glacier, after
an (apparently unsuccessful) assault on Jugroom Fort, a Taliban
stronghold in Helmand Province.

To recover him, two Army Air Corps Apaches flew back in with a
total of four passengers, three from the Royal Marines and one from
the Royal Engineers.

As the Apache has no spare seats, they had to be strapped on to the
outside of the helicopter, one on each wing.

A third Apache provided support.

It turned out that Lance Corporal Ford had been killed so the four
recovered his body and went out the way they had come in. They
were on the ground for about five minutes, part of the time under
fire.

The detailed story is on the MoD's web site at:

http://tinyurl.com/3a5u5r

If you haven't already seen it, I've also upped MoD's brief video
to alt.binaries.multimedia.aviation.

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