2006 Royal Air Force Nimrod crash

On 2 September 2006, a Royal Air Force Hawker Siddeley Nimrod suffered an in-flight fire and subsequently crashed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing all fourteen crew members on board. The crash, which occurred during a reconnaissance flight, was the biggest single loss of life suffered by the British military since the Falklands War.

Crash details

The aircraft is believed to have suffered a fuel leak or overflow during mid-air refuelling while it was monitoring Operation Medusa, a NATO offensive against Taliban insurgents west of Kandahar. The investigation found that fuel most probably travelled from a fuel tank blow-off valve on the starboard side of the lower-forward fuselage into an aft bay near the root of the starboard wing which contained hot air ducting pipes, where it saturated compressed insulation contained within a shrouding, holding the fuel against a hot air pipe until it reached auto-ignition temperature and caught fire.

The fire was first noted when smoke accumulated in the bomb-bay, leading the pilot to report it. He tried to reach Kandahar air base, taking the aircraft down from 23000 to 3,000 ft in 90 seconds. An RAF Harrier GR7 aircraft followed the Nimrod down and the pilot saw a wing explode, followed a few seconds later by the rest of the aircraft.

The crash site was about 25 mi west-north-west of Kandahar Airfield (which is located 10 mi south-east of the city of Kandahar) between two villages called Chil Khor and Fatehullah Qala in the Panjwaye District.

The twelve RAF personnel plus a Royal Marine and a British Army soldier aboard Nimrod MR2 XV230 were killed. A board of inquiry report was released in December 2007.