AN investigation is under way after an RAF Tornado accidentally jettisoned two underwing fuel tanks filled with kerosene shortly after take off from RAF Lossiemouth yesterday, writes Graeme Smith.
Last night eye witness Mrs Sandra Forbes, of Westerfold Farm, told how she watched in horror as the tanks dropped from the aircraft only 200 yards from where she was sitting in her car.
A RAF Lossiemouth spokesman said: ''Shortly after take off at 13.49 the underwing fuel tanks of a Tornado were inadvertently released. The impact point of the two tanks was within Ministry of Defence property but a small quantity of fuel was released on an adjacent minor road to the south west of the airfield.''
He confirmed that there were safety procedures to prevent the accidental release of the tanks and the investigation would be into why this had happened. The two crew were able to land the aircraft safely soon after the incident.
He also confirmed that debris from the two 500 litre fuel tanks had landed on the unclassified road outside the base, which was shut for several hours while a clean-up operation was carried out. Mrs Forbes said she was in her car leaving the farm and was at the end of the farm road when the plane was taking off.
''I was watching it when two fuel tanks came off. I gasped. It happened at the west end of the Lossiemouth runway and the two tanks skidded across the field. They were going away from me and they exploded and there was a lot of smoke but I didn't see any flames.''
No-one was injured in the incident and the RAF spokesman said an immediate containment and decontamination operation was launched in accordance with the station contingency plan. A team from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency helped in the operation.
Grampian Police said the auxiliary fuel tanks were jettisoned ''for reasons meantime unknown''.
Last month another Tornado crashed just miles from Torness nuclear power station, East Lothian. In October two Lossiemouth airmen died when their Tornado plunged into remote farmland in Northumberland, and in January, four people were killed when another Tornado collided with a Cessna aircraft in Nottinghamshire.
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