United Kingdom Chinook News

 

 

         
Released British hostage Gary Teeley, center, is helped by British service personnel from a Chinook helicopter on Monday, 12 April 2004, at 22 Field Hospital based in Shaibah, Iraq on his first full day of freedom after being held hostage by Iraqi militia. Teeley had been in Iraq working as a laundry firm consultant for a Qatar-based company when he was snatched from the southern city of Nasiriyah last Monday and was held until his release to Italian troops early Sunday.

 

             Released British hostage Gary Teeley, center, is helped by British service personnel from a Chinook helicopter on Monday, 12 April 2004, at 22 Field Hospital based in Shaibah, Iraq on his first full day of freedom after being held hostage by Iraqi militia. Teeley had been in Iraq working as a laundry firm consultant for a Qatar-based company when he was snatched from the southern city of Nasiriyah last Monday and was held until his release to Italian troops early Sunday.

 

         

 

          UK Donates Chinook Cockpit

 

 

         
UK donated cockpit to be utilized as a training aid in the search for missing crewmembers from the Vietnam War.

 

             March 2004: The United Kindom (UK) has graciously donated a CH-47 C model cockpit for use in fabricating a search team training cockpit. It will be utilized in training teams to help find the eight Chinook crews still missing in Vietnam, as part of the United States Missing in Action (MIA) / Prisoner of War (POW) recovery project. Shown above is the cockpit as it sits in the UK. The CH-47 Project Managers Office (PMO), located at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, located and supplied a shipping cradle to aid in the transport of the cockpit. The cockpit will be shipped to facilities at Patuxent River, Maryland, where it will be restored to the Vietnam Era configuration. From there it will be further transported to the Life Sciences Lab at Brooks Air Force Base (AFB). The cockpit is from a retired British CH-47C, ZH257.

             As of March 2004, the MIA/POW Full Accounting Office had a team in Laos looking for the cockpit from a C Company - "Platex", 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion (ASHB) C model, tail number 67-18506, that went down on 15 February 1971. A search team found the rear of the aircraft in 2002 with the four missing crewmen still onboard: WO1 Barry Fivelson, SP4 John Powers, SP4 Don Crone, and SP4 Willis Crear. The team hopes to find the pilots, 2Lt James Taylor and CW2 Marvin Leonard, this time. The accounting office is hopeful the cockpit device will also aid in finding an additional seven crews still missing.

 

         

 

          Prince Charles and Chinooks

 

 

         
Britain's Prince Charles is under heavy guard, as he leaves a Chinook helicopter at Basra Airport, Iraq, on Sunday, 8 February 2004. The Prince flew into the British Army controlled city to see for himself the progress of British forces in partnership with locals, nearly one year after the second Gulf War started.

 

             Britain's Prince Charles is under heavy guard, as he leaves a Chinook helicopter at Basra Airport, Iraq, on Sunday, 8 February 2004. The Prince flew into the British Army controlled city to see for himself the progress of British forces in partnership with locals, nearly one year after the second Gulf War started.

 

         

 

          Destination Iraq

 

 

         
Preparing for a possible declaration of war against Irag, troops train boarding a Chinook helicopter.

 

             A group of British marines move into a "Chinook" helicopter during a drill in the Kuwaiti desert near Iraq's border on 3 March 2003. The United Nations said on Monday that Iraq would submit a new report on VX nerve gas and anthrax stocks in a week's time as part of a drive to avert a possible U.S.-led invasion. Click-N-Go Here to read more...

 

         

 

          Giant cross lifted by UK helicopter

 

 

         
A Chinook helicopter has been used to help erect Britain's largest cross at a monastery in North Yorkshire.
   England, Monday, 17 June 2002, 16:40 GMT: A Chinook helicopter has been used to help erect Britain's largest cross at a monastery in North Yorkshire.

   The cross, which has stood
          outside Westminster Cathedral since December 2000, has been moved to Ampleforth Abbey.

             Known as the Millennium Cross, the 50-foot, 4.5-ton structure was the idea of the late Cardinal Basil Hume, leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales.

             Cardinal Hume was a monk and then Abbot at Ampleforth from 1963 to 1976.

         
The cross was airlifted by an RAF Chinook helicopter into position outside the abbey on Monday.
   The cross was airlifted by an RAF Chinook helicopter into position outside the abbey on Monday.

   Ampleforth Abbot, the Right Reverend Timothy Wright said: "The cross has being erected here in memory of Cardinal Basil, who became a figure of humility in high office that endeared him to the whole population."

             "The community has a particular stake in his commemoration."      

             "An important part of the reasoning behind siting the cross so prominently has been to give expression to the strong sense that this exceptional man belonged to each of us in a personal way."

             Cardinal Hume was a pupil and then housemaster at Ampleforth, the top Roman Catholic boys' school attached to the Abbey and run by the Benedictines.

             The huge structure, which cost £40,000 to build and a further £35,000 to put in place, was the idea of the late cardinal as part of the millennium celebrations.

 

         

 

          Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan

 

 

         
Royal Marine Commandos walk past a British HC Mark II Chinook helicopter.

 

             Royal Marine Commandos walk past a British HC Mark II Chinook helicopter as they arrive for a first aid course at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on Wednesday, 10 April 2002. More Royal Marines are expected to land at Bagram later Wednesday and over the next few days, eventually make up a force of 1700 troops, the most sent into action since the Gulf War.

 

 

          Related Sites

 

          Exercise Saif Sareea II

          UK Chinook History

          Tail Number History

 

 

          The CH-47 - 40 years old and still circling the world.

         

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