Royal Navy serviceman who died in train named

The Royal Navy has named the serviceman killed in a night-flying coaching train within the English Channel on 4 September as Lt Rhodri Leyshon.

Lt Leyshon’s household launched a press release on Friday saying he was “immeasurably cherished by his dad and mom, siblings, accomplice, family and friends and he was dedicated to them”.

A Merlin Mk4 helicopter ditched with three crew members on board, together with Lt Leyshon, 31, on Wednesday off the coast of Dorset.

An investigation into the accident is ongoing.

The 2 different crew members on board the helicopter on the time of the ditching – an emergency touchdown on water – weren’t severely injured.

“We’re all so very happy with the proficient, passionate, robust and constant man he was. We’ll all the time have him in our hearts. Our fantastic boy,” the household mentioned.

“Our lives won’t ever be the identical with out him.”

Lt Leyshon joined the Wales College Royal Naval Unit, which trains college students, in 2010 and was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 2014. He undertook flying coaching, specialising as a Commando Aviator, and accomplished a variety of abroad deployments, together with to the Caribbean, USA and Norway.

For the previous 18 months, Lt Leyshon had served in 846 Naval Air Squadron. The Navy mentioned he was one of many Commando Helicopter Power’s “most trusted and extremely succesful plane captains and instructors, having honed his expertise endeavor a few of Defence’s most specialist aviation duties”.

Colonel Mark Johnson, Commanding Officer of Commando Helicopter Power at Yeovilton, mentioned in a press release: “It’s immensely unhappy that we misplaced one in all our household.”

“Lt Leyshon was a consummate skilled and a shining mild with a shiny future. He epitomised our workforce spirit and his loss leaves an enormous gap in all our hearts.”

Air Vice-Marshal Alastair Smith, Commander of Joint Aviation Command, mentioned he had flown with Lt Leyshon a couple of days in the past and attested to his professionalism as a pilot and his heat as a personality.

“He will probably be sorely missed,” he mentioned.

The Ministry of Defence has not mentioned precisely the place the helicopter ditched throughout the coaching train with HMS Queen Elizabeth, nevertheless it has confirmed it was within the English Channel off the coast of Dorset.

Satellite tv for pc imagery exhibits an plane provider was about 20 miles (30km) south of the Dorset seaside city of Lyme Regis at about noon on Wednesday.

Marine monitoring web sites counsel the UK’s second plane provider, HMS Prince of Wales, was within the Mediterranean, close to Gibraltar, so it’s seemingly that the ship within the Channel was the Queen Elizabeth.

The Mk4, or Mark 4, utilized by the Royal Marines, has been deployed all over the world. It’s a variant of the Merlin helicopter developed between the UK and Italy.

It’s thought of the “world’s most superior amphibious battlefield helicopter”, in accordance with the Royal Navy, and may carry as much as 24 troops.

The final accident involving a Merlin helicopter occurred in Afghanistan in 2010, in accordance with on-line information outlet Navy Lookout.

The plane, being utilized by the Royal Air Power on the time, suffered a heavy touchdown at Camp Bastion, a former British Military airbase in Helmand Province. No-one was killed.