MoD denies helicopter shortage

Sun Nov 1 2009 07:19:35

The Government is insisting that troops are properly equipped despite a fresh barrage of criticism that helicopter shortages are endangering lives.

Armed forces minister Bill Rammell said he did not believe the lives of any British troops had been lost in Afghanistan due to a lack of chopper support.

The row over helicopter support for troops in Afghanistan was re-ignited when it emerged that a high-ranking officer foresaw his own death.

Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe became the most senior British officer to die in the conflict when he was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) on July 1.

Three weeks before his death, he complained bitterly in an email to his bosses that helicopter support for troops was "very clearly not fit for purpose".

It meant that troops had to be moved by road rather than by air, exposing them to the threat of IEDs - one of the Taliban's main weapons.

Yesterday Ian Sadler, whose son Jack, 21, died when his Land Rover was hit by a mine in Afghanistan on December 4, 2007, said the admissions were the "final nail in Gordon Brown's coffin".

Mr Sadler, of Exmouth, Devon, said: "I'm livid about this and have been aware of the MoD's lack of support for our soldiers for some time."

He said his son, a Trooper with the Honourable Artillery Company, would still be alive if a Chinook helicopter had been used to move some light guns and their ammunition into position.

Instead, he said, it took troops - including his son - two days to do what a Chinook could have done in four 15-minute sorties.

Tory MP Adam Holloway, who obtained Lt Col Thorneloe's email, said: "We have been told consistently that the senior officers say that there are enough helicopters to do the job and yet we now have literally in black and white, in a classified document, his weekly update, the fact that that is not the truth."

© Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.