​On Saturday 6 May 2006 Lynx AH Mk 7 Serial No. XZ614 of 847 Naval Air Squadron Detachment assigned to the Joint Helicopter Force (Iraq), was conducting a local area reconnaissance of Helicopter Landing Sites overhead Basra city. After  transiting some two kilometres from the airfield at medium level, the aircraft came down 500 metres south of the Old State Building, crashing onto the rooftop of a residential building in the city centre. The three crew and two Royal Air Force passengers in the aircraft were fatally injured. The Board of Inquiry concluded that the main cause of the crash was a hostile Surface-to-Air Missile attack. 
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the operational incident, Acts of Remembrance were carried out at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton and the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire. Families, friends and former colleagues gathered at the venues to commemorate Lieutenant Commander Darren Chapman, Captain David Dobson, Marine Paul Collins, as well as Wing Commander John Coxen and Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill. 
Both services were led by Reverend James Bell-Winfrow, the current Commando Helicopter Force Chaplain. 

A Fleet Air Arm man is one of the ninety nine ‘lost’ names from the British Roll of Honour for the Battle of Normandy being engraved on the British Normandy Memorial to join those of the 22,442 names already inscribed there. The names will be engraved on a special “Addenda” panel on the west wall of ‘Memorial Court’ where they will be dedicated as part of the D-Day 82 commemorations in June 2026.
The missing name was Temporary Sub Lieutenant(A) Robert Welsh Irons RNVR (21), the Observer in an 854 Naval Air Squadron Avenger, Serial Number JZ452. The aircraft was operating from Hawkinge in Kent and failed to return from patrol over the Pas-de-Calais area, Northern France on 7 June 1944 (D-Day + 1).
Avenger, Serial Number JZ452, was piloted by Temporary Sub Lieutenant(A) Raymond Douglas White RNVR (20),  and Leading Airman Leonard Charles Green (19),  was the Telegraphist Air Gunner. All three aircrew are listed on the Lee-on-Solent Memorial, Hampshire and now on the British Normandy Memorial, Ver-sur-Mer, France overlooking 'Gold Beach'. 
The family home of 'Bobby' Irons was at Whitehall Villa, 1 Robert Street, Newport-on-Tay, Scotland. He had attended Bell Baxter School, Cupar and had gained a Diploma in Electrical Engineering at Dundee Technical College. He volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm, and trained at Arbroath and at Lewiston, Maine, USA.

Ilchester Junior School pupils have had a busy week learning about the poppy and what it has come to symbolise for over a century.
Representatives from the school visited the Royal Naval Cemetery to place some of the beautiful poppies they had made. The children decided to position them around the  armillary base so that they can be seen during this year's Remembrance Sunday service and for the rest of November.  
Earlier in the day, they had also put poppies on 'Falklands Way' so that each Fleet Air Arm man who did not come home after the 1982 conflict had their own handmade flower. 
On Tuesday our Custodian had delivered a presentation focusing on just a few of the Royal Naval Air Service and Fleet Air Arm personnel killed in both World Wars, how they are commemorated and then talking about what remembrance meant to them personally. This prompted plenty of thoughtful and interesting questions from this large group of 90 young people.
Thank you Ilchester Junior School for your undivided attention and taking the time to remember those who died for our country so that we have the freedom to live as we do today. 
Well done!