THE bodies of three teenage air cadets, two boys and a girl, were
found last night after an RAF helicopter plunged into a lake in North
Wales during a training flight.
The three, from the East Lancashire wing of the Air Training Corps,
were aboard a Wessex helicopter from RAF Valley on Anglesey. The
helicopter's rear rotor failed.
Four other people aboard the aircraft -- three male RAF crew and a
fourth cadet, a 16-year-old girl -- managed to free themselves after it
crashed into Llyn Padarn, a lake by the Snowdonia holiday town of
Llanberis.
As scores of holidaymakers watched from the lakeside, the helicopter
sank in a matter of seconds with the three cadets trapped inside.
Police divers began searching the lake soon after the mid-afternoon
crash and located the helicopter in 70ft of water by 7pm. The first body
was brought ashore an hour later and the others soon after.
The four survivors were brought to the shore by canoeists taking part
in water sports on the lake and were taken to hospital 15 miles away in
Bangor. All suffered back injuries in the accident but none was in a
serious condition.
Snowdonia National Park warden Aled Taylor, who saw the crash, said:
''The tail rotor of the helicopter stopped and the machine went out of
control.
''We had radio contact with another helicopter which was scrambled,
and because there were so many people at the lakeside it was possible to
direct the machine to a pretty precise location where the Wessex went
down.''
The lake, which is more than 100ft deep in places, has the reputation
of being particularly cold.
Ieuan Williams, who was working at a lakeside garage at the scene of
the crash, said: ''We thought the helicopter was coming down on the
garage but the pilot managed to manoeuvre it over the lake. The nose
went down and it crashed into the water.''
North Wales police last night said next of kin of those involved in
the crash had all been informed, but no names had yet been released.
Flight-Lieutenant Nick Stillwell, who was piloting another Wessex from
RAF Valley when he heard the distress call, said: ''We flew directly
here and heard the locater beacons going off.
''When we arrived we could see one of the people being towed in by a
canoe. We landed on the bank of the lake and our winchman helped one of
the crew ashore.
''We put them into stretchers and flew the worst three injured -- the
three crewmen -- to Bangor Hospital. We came back for the fourth but she
had been taken by ambulance to Bangor by then.''
The accident was captured on video by a holidaymaker, David Sowden, of
Walton Road, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, who was on the Padarn Lake steam
railway with his wife and family when he spotted the helicopter
approaching.
He said: ''I was videoing the helicopter because I thought they were
on a routine training exercise. Then it seemed to go into a spiral and
crashed into the lake. I couldn't believe my eyes. I kept videoing all
the time but I couldn't really grasp what I was watching. It was gone
from the surface within a matter of seconds.''
He gave the videotape to BBC Wales, and millions of people saw it on
national BBC TV news last night.
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