MOD bravely soldiers on despite the rodent risk*
THE RAF plane that carried Diana’s coffin to Britain from Paris is now used to transport oil workers and labourers in Indonesia.
No 32 Squadron’s plush four-engined Bae 146 jet, with its special red-winged livery, had been used to fly royalty and prime ministers to all corners of the world.
But the last official journey of the so-called Queen’s Flight – on September 1, 1997 – was its most sombre, carrying the Princess of Wales’ body home after she died in a car crash along with Dodi Fayed.
Engineering crews at RAF Northolt, west London, were tasked to work through the night to make alterations so that her coffin could fit on to the steel runners in the hold of the aircraft. A small plaque was placed there in memory of the important mission.
Shortly after, then prime ministertony Blair ordered that the plane – one of three – should be sold in a cost-cutting exercise.
Last night its fate was revealed.
After operating as a private aircraft in Majorca, it was sold off to a charter company in the Far East.
Now the ageing plane is being used to ferry oil workers around Indonesia.
A Whitehall source said: “We have been told its interior is, shall we say, far from the pristine condition normally associated with a Royal aircraft.”
WORKING at a military base might well be thought of as risky.
But getting injured while dancing, breaking bones in giant inflatable footballs or being savaged by dormice aren’t perhaps the first dangers that spring to mind.
A dossier of health and safety incidents logged by the Ministry of Defence reveals how staff have been poisoned, burnt, attacked and maimed in bizarre accidents.
The MOD has disclosed cases where military personnel have been injured in accidents and on military training courses.
But staff and the public have also been hurt on its bases, in incidents that include over-enthusiastic dance classes, rodent bites and being poisoned at the dentist.
In one of the most serious cases, an employee at a RAF base had his finger sliced off between two aircraft hangar doors. The man had been shutting the huge metal doors when his left ring finger got caught and was sliced clean off.
A report said a colleague found the severed digit on the ground and packed it in ice so it could be taken to hospital.
In another RAF case, a trainee suffered a head injury when their crash helmet fell off a locker. The report says the rookie was signed off sick.
Another trainee lost consciousness during an exercise with CS gas when they held their breath for too long. The more unusual incidents included an MOD police officer who had volunteered to be a suspect for a police dog to chase and catch. He had his shoulder dislocated by the animal wrenching his arm. A match of bubble football, where players are half-encased in a plastic sphere, saw a member of the RAF trip, breaking their coccyx.
Then a patient went to the MOD dentist where the tubes for the aspirator still contained disinfectant. The person had to be taken to hospital to see whether they had been poisoned.
An electrician needed hospital attention after being bitten by a dormouse, inset, while a cleaner broke their arm after falling into a bath while removing a cobweb from the ceiling.
In two cases, MOD police officers became ill when exhaust fumesseeped into their vehicles.
There was also a bizarre dancing accident when a member of the public at an MOD facility managed to dislocate their knee while learning the cha cha slide.
And a keep-fit fan was injured after tripping on a treadmill and being thrown from the back of it.
The mishaps to military personnel were revealed by safety officers who recorded the incidents for the Health and Safety Executive.
In the past year the MOD paid £86million in compensation for incidents affecting service personnel and £16million to civilian staff.
In previous years accidents revealed by the HSE included a soldier burnt by a flaming Christmas pudding, a recruit who tumbled out of a bunk bed, and an office worker who suffered a slipped disc doing a lunchtime yoga session.