The Morayvia Museum at Kinloss in Scotland recently unveiled a memorial to crew members lost in three Nimrod crashes
With a centrepiece containing the fin of Nimrod MR.2 XV239, the tribute features two large stone plaques. A ceremony on August 26 was attended by next of kin, local dignitaries and representatives of the three services, among others.
The plaques commemorate those lost in XV256 which crashed following a bird strike on November 17, 1980, XV230 which was lost in Afghanistan on September 2, 2006 and XV239 which crashed into Canada’s Lake Ontario on September 2, 1995. The fin of the latter survived relatively intact and was acquired by the Toronto Aerospace Museum following completion of the accident investigation. It was displayed as a memorial to the crew that perished, until the attraction closed its doors in September 2011.
On January 9, 2020, after a ceremony in Canada, the fin was loaded into a CC-177 Globemaster at Trenton and flown to Prestwick, Scotland. Morayvia collected the exhibit and initially placed it in storage. The new memorial was formally unveiled by Alistair Mackie MBE, who was one of those to survive the crash of XV256.
