Never thought I would see this again. I had been drafted to Vampire, must have been my first trip. Coming out of 3 Quebec mess, walking up the passageway, listening to the sound of a helo transfer on X deck, all of a sudden the normal sound of the helo engine went to a slowing woop, woop woo.. looked out one of the scuttles on the portside passageway, to see the wessex slowly dropping into the sea, the eyes of the flight crewman on the starboard sight of the helos flight deck were as big as pussers duff plates.

Like a good engineering type, I went on watch down in B boiler room, thinking, " this is going to be an interesting watch.I'll leave the dib dabs to it " Turned out it was, more engine telegraph movements than you could shake a stick at. The large cutter filmed near the helo was from Melbourne. The two ships filmed were a type 12, Yarra, I think, and a Canadian frigate. From all accounts, the recovery of the helo was a stuff up. The intention was to recover the Wessex using a crane from Melbourne, but they suceeded in tipping the helo over, before that could happen. Thankfully all crew members were recovered ok, by Vampires crew.

[ame]https://youtu.be/NPtspbaFutA[/ame]