ONE of two British officers who died when their helicopter was shot
down by US fighters over northern Iraq on Thursday was due to return to
his family on Benbecula in the Western Isles in six weeks.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Swan, 51, was a staff officer at the Royal
Artillery's rocket range on the island and had been on a six-month
deployment with the United Nations since last November.
He died with 25 others, including Major Harry Shapland, 28, of the
Irish Guards, when US F-15C jets mistook two UN Blackhawk helicopters
for Iraqi Hind gunships and downed them with missiles.
His wife Helen, son Jamie, 17, who attends school at Linciclate on
Benbecula, and his daughter Katie, 20, a college student, expected him
back at married quarters on the remote island in June.
The commander of the rocket range, Lieutenant-Colonel Crawford
Stoddart, said yesterday: ''He was a first-class officer and a loving
husband and father. Our hearts go out to Jonathan's family.''
Colonel Swan's wife Helen was last night being comforted by friends at
her home on the base. She declined to comment. His mother lives in
Hertfordshire and it is expected that the funeral will take place there
when his body is returned to the UK.
The remains of Colonel Swan and Major Shapland, a single man from
Oxfordshire, together with the 15 US victims, were expected to be flown
yesterday to Rhein Main airbase in Frankfurt.
Major Shapland, who had been an officer for eight years and had served
in Germany, Belize, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Berlin, and Northern Ireland,
lived with his wealthy family in a seventeenth-century farm house at
Rotherfield Greys, near Henley-on-Thames.
The ivy-clad, red-bricked Peppard Cottage became famous after it was
used as the main location for the Oscar-winning film, Howards End.
Meanwhile, members of the inquiry team began assembling in Turkey to
establish what went wrong.
The investigation into the friendly-fire killings is being headed by
Major-General James G. Andrus, Commander of the American Third Air
Force, based in Mildenhall, Suffolk, who yesterday flew to the Turkish
base at Incirlik.
The Ministry of Defence said the inquiry team would be joined by the
Commander of the RAF's Harrier jump-jet detachment at Incirlik, Group
Captain David Jones, who will initially act as British observer.
Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, on a visit to the US, said: ''This
incident is quite incomprehensible given the normal procedures that
applied, given the fact it is not in the fog of war, indeed it was broad
daylight. A lot of very painful questions need to be asked and more
importantly they need to be answered.''
Fellow officers, friends and colleagues of Lt Col Swann at the Royal
Artillery Range on Benbecula in the Western Isles were said to be
devastated by his death.
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