AN RAF servicewoman killed in an avalanche in the Cairngorms has been given a full military funeral.
Tributes were paid yestrday to Flight Lieutenant Fran Capps, 32, at a memorial service in the Priory Church in Dunster, Somerset.
She was one of three climbers who died on February 14 when they were engulfed in an avalanche in the Chalamain Gap, a deep, rocky cleft. They were flown to hospital in Aberdeen where they were pronounced dead.
Another who died was Squadron Leader Rimon Than, 33, of RAF Valley in North Wales.
The third victim was William Currie, 18, from Penzance, who was with another party in the Chalamain Gap on a winter skills training course organised by the Scottish National Outdoor Training Centre at Glenmore Lodge.
Flt Lt Capps was described by friends as "exceptionally dedicated" and well known for her "joie de vivre".
She had joined the RAF in 2001 and served at a range of stations, most recently at RAF Odiham in Hampshire, following tours of duty in Iraq, the Falklands, Afghanistan and Qatar. She was a member of the RAF Mountaineering Association.
Almost four weeks before her death, an avalanche killed four climbers in Glen Coe.
Dr Rachel Majumdar, originally from Merseyside, Chris Bell, from Blackburn, Una Finnegan, from County Londonderry, and Tom Chesters, from Sidmouth in Devon, all died. However, a 24-year-old woman from the Durham area remains in the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
A sixth climber, a man, survived by getting out of the way of the avalanche, but has never been named.
l An undertaker in Fort William has complained that Highland Council's closure more than a year ago of the mortuary in Glen Nevis, near Fort William, had meant the bodies of the Glen Coe avalanche victims had lain in the mountain rescue team headquarters until they could be identified.
Mike McFall said he was now installing a refrigerated facility of his own, so bodies do not have to be taken all the way to the mortuary in Inverness.
A Highland Council spokeswoman said the council had no statutory duty to provide mortuary facilities.
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