Who took an Alouette out in the moonlight?

The Herald, March 6, 1980

DEFENCE staff somewhere in Rhodesia announced that a highly skilled helicopter pilot is on the loose. He is a wanted man.

Combined Operations want to know what prompted him to steal an Alouette helicopter belonging to the Rhodesian Air Force.

A spokesman for Combined Operations Headquarters, confirmed last night that the helicopter had been stolen from New Sarum at about midnight two nights ago. He said the aircraft had been recovered intact somewhere north of Salisbury.

The spokesman denied earlier reports yesterday that the helicopter had been stolen and flown by a member of the Rhodesian security forces.

The phantom flyer was, nevertheless, “a highly skilled pilot”, the spokesman said. As a general rule Rhodesian Alouettes are not flown at night as they lack the night-flying capabilities of more sophisticated helicopters. No arrest has been made.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

• Military aircrafts should be highly secured because they can be distractive if the fall into the wrong hands.
• The theft of military aircraft though not very common, has occurred in different parts of the world including the United States. A case in point was on February 17, 1974, when US Army Private First-Class Robert Kenneth Preston took off in a stolen Bell UH-1B troquois “Huey” helicopter from Maryland, and landed it on the south lawn of the White House in a significant breach of security to show his flying skills after he lost his opportunity to attain the rank of warrant officer pilot and was relegated to being a helicopter mechanic.
• Unsanctioned flying of military aircraft is not only dangerous in terms of security protocols, but it also poses a threat to civilian air traffic.