Senior Aircraftman David Tebay

David 'Tibs' Tebay served in Royal Air Force 1963 to 1977 as a telegraphist.

He most enjoyed membership of 38 Group, TCW at RAF Tangmere 1968/1969/1970. Whilst serving there he joined Brigade Air Support Operations (BASO). After completing Parachute Jump Instruction Course no 727 at No.1 PTS RAF Abingdon in May 1970, he became part of 16th Parachute Brigade

He was attached to Echo troop, 244 Signal Squadron at RAF Tangmere during 1970 and then in 1971 went with them to RAF Benson.

David jumped on a variety of locations, in The UK, Cyprus, Sicily and Sardinia. He jumped from several different aircraft including Andovers, C130s,  Argosys, balloons and helicopters.

Eventually David moved on to conduct more routine RAF duties, but always missed his time with the Army and other tactical units. 

David also added recollections of when 2 exercises went badly wrong:

"During my service time I was unfortunate to be close to two disasters involving Para personnel. The first was on 7th May 1968.  Members of 38 Grp TCW were due to fly out with their heavy comms equipment from desert airstrip Spillaine at Got el afraq Libya at end of Exercise Crayon. Priority at short notice was given to 6 soldiers from 7 para RHA and 216 para Sigs and the 38 Grp personnel were offloaded but their equipment remained onboard consequently making it heavy. The Argosy crashed right in front of us after returning to the strip for a visual undercarriage check. There were no survivors despite the efforts of the fire crew and bystanders. It was a horrific and horrifying incident which put me in shock for a couple of weeks although I did not realise it at the time.

We were scheduled to fly out the next day but flying was ceased and we travelled back to Wheelus airbase by Convoy passing a Royal Convoy travelling in the opposite direction containing King Idris. We flew out of Wheelus by C130 but not without incident. Just as we were about to take of a hydraulic pipe fractured and sprayed us with warm hydraulic fluid causing a panic. We stayed on board and it was subsequently decided that it was a non-essential system and that it could be repaired on return to the UK which we did but after what we had experienced only days previously it was a stressful flight.

The second incident was on 9th November 1971. I was on exercise Coldstream at Pisa Italy with 38gp Tcw from Raf Benson. My CO asked me as I was para trained if I would be prepared to jump as they were short of Parachute personnel. I agreed but for some reason they decided I must sign a disclaimer in case I was killed or injured. I said I was keen to jump but expected them to take responsibility. I was as a result not allowed to jump and to this day do not know which plane I would have been on, the one that crashed or one of the others!  It is an ambition of mine to visit the memorial at Livorno to pay my respects to those that died but unfortunately every time I have made plans something has prevented it."