Rural communities brand low-flying exercises �diabolical�
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

Vehicles and buildings across large parts of rural Scotland are deliberately used as practice targets by low-flying military jets, the Ministry of Defence has admitted.

Cars being driven along quiet roads, boats cruising through lochs and people living in countryside homes can all be buzzed by fighter pilots rehearsing for war in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The admission has outraged rural communities, who lambast low-flying as "diabolical" and "dangerous". And it has prompted a call from the Scottish National Party for the MoD to review its policy on low flying in Scotland.

Virtually all of Scotland - outside zones around Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen - is used for low flying by the MoD. Two vast swathes of land in the far north and in the south have been also been designated as Tactical Training Areas, where jets are allowed to come as low as 100 feet.

Over the last five years, MoD figures suggest that nearly 56,000 hours of low-flying practice have taken place over Scotland. Most of that has been north of the central belt, though there have also been thousands of flights across the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.

Now the MoD has confessed that pilots have been pretending that vehicles on public highways are enemy armoured cars. And they have been imagining that buildings in rural areas are terrorist hideouts.

It was a complaint from an alarmed resident in Ullapool that prompted the MoD to own up. Andrew Bluefield described what had happened when he and his wife were driving along the A835 towards Inverness a year ago.

"We were shocked by the enormous noise of a plane very low over the car, which immediately banked away and climbed very steeply," he told the Sunday Herald. "We both felt that our car had been used as a target. The incident was distracting, dangerous and frightening, especially as the plane had come from behind."

After another incident in March this year when a military jet appeared to conduct a dummy bombing run towards a dam on Loch Droma near the A835, Bluefield wrote to his MP, Charles Kennedy, to complain.

The response he received from Derek Twigg MP, the under-secretary of state for defence in London, confirmed his suspicions. "Aircrew are required, as part of their training, to select practice targets which are representative of those they are likely to face in operations," Twigg wrote. "This may include vehicles (in simulation of military vehicles) as well as buildings. In order to avoid causing potential distraction in areas of heavy traffic, military aircrews avoid carrying out prolonged or unusual activity near to major roads."

Bluefield's complaints have been backed up by others in the Ullapool area. Irene Brandt, who lives in Rhue, overlooking Loch Broom, saw a military jet fly directly towards a boat earlier this year.

"It is frightening when they come out of the sky behind you," she said. "It really is quite diabolical at times."

The SNP MSP for the Highlands and Islands, Rob Gibson, has taken up the complaints about low-flying. He accused the MoD of treating people and the landscape in an "arrogant" manner.

Twigg's letter was the first time the MoD has admitted what people had long suspected, he said. "This is targeting people in their homes and in their cars, and it's quite unacceptable."

He highlighted recent evidence that the shock of jets zooming overhead could cause heart attacks. "People who get a fright can cause an accident," he argued. "The MoD is a blight on our economic lives and a blight on our everyday lives and its low flying has to be reviewed." That was the policy of the SNP, he said.

In Dumfries and Galloway a horse breeder is suing the MoD for £100,000, alleging that constant low flying has ruined her business. Alyson King claims the sudden noise from military jets distresses her pedigree black Arabian stallions.

The MoD, however, defended its need to train aircrews. "UK forces have to deploy repeatedly to potential trouble spots, usually with little or no warning, and low flying remains an essential skill," said an MoD spokesman.

"It is rigorously controlled and continuously monitored. Since 1988 the total number of sorties has reduced by a third, and those by jets by more than half."

He made no apology for targeting cars and homes, and indicated that low flying was going to increase over the next 10 days. A "combined qualified weapons instructors course" was due to take place at RAF Kinloss in Moray from tomorrow to July 4 .

"The aim is to improve the tactical leadership skills of aircrew through training in a controlled, but realistic, tactical environment," the spokesman said. "Planners are taking steps to avoid repetitive flying over areas which may be particularly sensitive to low flying and aircraft noise."