RAF Tornadoes: Chequered record of RAF fighter jet over 30 years

By FRANK URQUHART
Published on 04/07/2012 01:13

SINCE the Tornado was first brought into service by the RAF in 1982, there have been 17 recorded crashes in the UK, six of them in Scotland.

1994: An RAF Tornado crashed at Glen Ogle, killing the pilot and navigator.

1999: An RAF Tornado ditched in the North Sea, narrowly missing the Torness nuclear plant, near Dunbar, during a low-level night exercise.

2003: The crew of an RAF Tornado were forced to make a 200mph crash-landing at RAF Leuchars after the undercarriage on the fighter malfunctioned.

2005: Two airmen rescued after they ejected from an RAF Tornado seconds before the jet crashed into the North Sea.

2009: Two-man crew of a Tornado F3 killed after it crashed into the side of a mountain on in Glen Kinglas, Argyll, on a low-level training mission. An inquiry concluded it had “insufficient room” to turn before it crashed.

27 January, 2011: Two RAF crewmen eject from their blazing Tornado before it crashed into the sea six miles north-west of the former Rubha Reidh lighthouse near Gairloch.

10 February, 2011:  The crew of a Tornado fighter jet forced to eject after it had landed on the main runway at Lossiemouth. The pilot and navigator escaped serious injury.

It was also revealed in June last year that  an  RAF Tornado jet came within 200 metres of a catastrophic collision with two Swedish airforce fighters in October, 2010,

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