RAF Hercules destroyed after crew failed to check its lights

A £65MILLION RAF plane that was damaged on a secret SAS mission was written off after the “complacent” crew failed to check the landing lights worked properly.

The botched tactical landing in the darkness on a remote, semi-prepared airstrip in Syria injured all nine RAF crew on board the Hercules aircraft, with two unable to fly for two months, a Ministry of Defence report said.

The plane came down on Aug 25 2017 while on a mission to resupply SAS troops operating near Syria’s border and was flown by the crew using nightvision goggles.

Trials revealed that ZH873’S infrared landing lights, which should show up when wearing the goggles, were defective, with 60 per cent not working and the remainder working at less than a tenth of their designed brightness.

Although smashing into the runway more than four times harder than a normal landing, the pilots managed to coax the aircraft back into the air and divert to Erbil Airport in northern Iraq.

RAF ground crews, it was found, were not checking the lights’ brightness, only if they switched on or not.

Lt Gen Richard Felton, then director general of the Defence Safety Authority, criticised the RAF for a culture of “complacency, reflecting an attitude endemic in a small force”.

His report concluded the accident had been caused by a “late, inappropriate and ineffective” handling of the aircraft.

An MOD spokesman said it fully accepted the report, adding that it enabled “all those involved to take action for the future”.