Initial reports

I first became aware of this accident from watching the BBC1 news on the evening of the 27th. The accident had only happened a few hours before, but five bodies had already been recovered. The report suggested search and rescue was in full swing to recover the remaining two people that were known to be on board.

Living in North Wales, which is essentially on the same bit of sea as Morecambe bay, I knew the weather was pretty benign at the time with light winds, little or no precipitation and temperatures above freezing. Given that in the previous weeks we had had some very extreme winds, it seemed ironic that it was when everything was calm that the accident happened.

It would have been very dark when the aircraft crashed, but that would have been entirely normal for the helicopter movements.