This very stormy evening saw 12 Team members take a visit to Lancashire Aero Club Rescue & Fire Service at Barton Aerodrome, for familiarisation of small aircraft types. We have the big planes at Manchester International Airport and military at BAE Warton and RAF Stafford MRT, now it was the turn of their little brothers.

Team members getting a safety brief and shown the inside of a Aircraft engine compartment.

Now it’s the inside that gets a good seeing to.

We were shown around various light aircrafts and shown danger points, fuel points, cut-off points and all manner of things to do with what to listen to and look for on a drowned airframe. This was done by Barry Kennedy, Charlie Collier, John Coxon & John Milligan. A tour of the control tower was undertaken by Mark Knowles, unfortunately the airport was very quiet due to the weather, a fierce thunderstorm had been brewing in the South Manchester area for a good hour before the visit.

The look on Gyles Denn’s face, makes us think he doesn’t want to fly again.

The teams thanks are passed to Phill Rawlins on organising this visit and to Lancashire Aero Club for entertaining us. (To show what a small world it is John Coxon was involved with us on a search based at Sale Water Park on Incident 77/2003 last October. Dave Healey knows his daughter, and Dave also knows Phill from a previous life)