Poignant service recalls Chinook crash victims

Dave Ellis, 62, who was winchman on the coastguard helicopter, said he remembers it “like it was yesterday”.

He said: “The pilot was in a bad way. Eric was a lot better, but there was a lot of shock.

“We were trying to say to them: ‘Everything is alright, you’re OK’.

“The two survivors are still alive. I still have the bottle of whisky given to me by Eric Morrans.

“And his mum still sends me a Christmas card.”

Rescue pilot Gordon Mitchell.

Rev Pauline Nixon paid tribute to her husband Neville, who died in the crash.

In his book, The Loonliness of a Deep Sea Diver, David Harrison Beckett, 69, described the harrowing experience he and his crew of divers had when they were called to recover the bodies of those who died.

Mr Beckett said he found the only way to deal with what he was seeing was to detach himself “emotionally”.

He wrote: “My aim was first and f o re m o st to recover those bodies and do so in a manner which was fast, out of the public eye and in the most dignified way possible with the limited resources we had.”

Pilot Neville Nixon was only 44 when he lost his life in the crash.

His wife, Pauline, said: “Neville was just lovely. He was a gentleman – he was called ‘ low- level Neville’. He was a very Christian man and a wonderful husband and father. He was my soul mate.”

Mary McMillan, 69, from Aberdeen lost husband John, 38, in the crash. She said: “It still affects you when the date of the disaster comes

round.”

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