RAF pilots asked to consider suicide missions

By staff writers

April 03, 2007 10:31am


A SENIOR British air force officer has asked his fighter pilots if they would fly suicide missions as a last resort to stop terrorists.

Air Vice-Marshal David Walker put forward the last-ditch scenario at a conference for air crews, the Ministry of Defence said, according to the Sun newspaper.

According to tabloid, he said: "Would you think it unreasonable if I ordered you to fly your aircraft into the ground in order to destroy a vehicle carrying a Taliban or al-Qaeda commander?"

A ministry spokesman said Air Vice-Marshal Walker did not say he would order his crews on suicide missions.

"As part of a training exercise, he wanted them to think about how they, and their commanders, would react, faced with a life and death decision of the most extreme sort - for example terrorists trying to fly an aircraft into a British city being followed by an RAF fighter which suffers weapons failure," the spokesman said.

"These are decisions which, however unlikely and dreadful, service people may have to make and it is one of many reasons why the British people hold them in such high esteem."