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03/04/2007
RAF pilots quizzed on kamikaze missions
RAF fighter pilots have been asked to consider the idea of flying suicide missions as a last resort to stop terrorists.
Air Vice-Marshal David Walker is understood to have posed the question during a conference at RAF High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.
AVM Walker, who formerly piloted Harrier jump jets in the RAF, is reported to have asked pilots and commanders what they would do if they had a vehicle containing a Taliban or al-Qaeda commander in their sights, but had run out of ammunition or suffered a weapons failure.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence stressed that pilots had not been ordered to undertake suicide missions and said that the question was part of a training exercise.
The spokesperson said: "He (AVM Walker) wanted them to think about how they, and their commanders, would react faced with a life and death decision of the most extreme sort - for example terrorists trying to fly and aircraft into a British city, being followed by an RAF fighter which suffers weapons failure.
"These are decisions which, however unlikely and dreadful, service people may have to make and it is one of many reasons why the British people hold them in such high esteem."
(KMcA)
Air Vice-Marshal David Walker is understood to have posed the question during a conference at RAF High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.
AVM Walker, who formerly piloted Harrier jump jets in the RAF, is reported to have asked pilots and commanders what they would do if they had a vehicle containing a Taliban or al-Qaeda commander in their sights, but had run out of ammunition or suffered a weapons failure.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence stressed that pilots had not been ordered to undertake suicide missions and said that the question was part of a training exercise.
The spokesperson said: "He (AVM Walker) wanted them to think about how they, and their commanders, would react faced with a life and death decision of the most extreme sort - for example terrorists trying to fly and aircraft into a British city, being followed by an RAF fighter which suffers weapons failure.
"These are decisions which, however unlikely and dreadful, service people may have to make and it is one of many reasons why the British people hold them in such high esteem."
(KMcA)
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