{"id":60572,"date":"2026-09-11T20:04:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/helicopter-engine-fault-behind-royal-navy-servicemans-death\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T20:04:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:04:49","slug":"helicopter-engine-fault-behind-royal-navy-servicemans-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/helicopter-engine-fault-behind-royal-navy-servicemans-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Helicopter engine fault behind Royal Navy serviceman&#8217;s death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">A helicopter engine fault was one factor behind the death of a Royal Navy serviceman during a training exercise, an investigation has concluded.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On 4 September 2024, three crew members were on board the Merlin Mk4, based at Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton in Somerset, for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/p0jnsccs\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">night-flying exercises<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At about 20:50 GMT the aircraft ditched &#8211; a deliberate emergency landing on water, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ce8d5vlqg74o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">approximately 25 nautical miles south of Lyme Regis<\/a>, Dorset.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A service inquiry found the right-hand seat pilot, Lt Rhodri Leyshon, had been &#8220;seriously injured&#8221; during the impact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It also said he was &#8220;unable to escape from the aircraft as it entered the water&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The inquiry found the helicopter crashed after a diaphragm inside the engine split.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This allowed fuel to flow through the diaphragm and into the engine,&#8221; the inquiry report said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The excess fuel caused the engine to operate at a much faster speed than normal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said the crew members then &#8220;erroneously concluded that the number one and three engines had failed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The report said these two engines were manually switched off, causing the remaining engine to reach its &#8220;overspeed trip threshold&#8221; and also deactivate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The loss of power from all three engines caused the aircraft to descend into the sea,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c1mvxvz42vyo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A helicopter engine fault was one factor behind the death of a Royal Navy serviceman during a training exercise, an investigation has concluded. On 4 September 2024, three crew members were on board the Merlin Mk4, based at Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton in Somerset, for night-flying exercises. At about 20:50 GMT the aircraft [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[715,1493,11144,1922,5092,1639,16679],"class_list":["post-60572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-death","tag-engine","tag-fault","tag-helicopter","tag-navy","tag-royal","tag-servicemans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60574,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60572\/revisions\/60574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}