The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
RAF Lossiemouth in mourning after death of colleague
RAF Lossiemouth has issued a heartfelt tribute to a “highly valued” aircraft technician who was killed in a road crash last week.
Corporal David Thorne died after a collision between his motorcycle and a car on the A96 near Huntly last Tuesday.
The 43-year-old was on leave, enjoying “precious time” with his family, when he was involved in the crash on the Aberdeen to Inverness road.
In a statement released yesterday, Royal Air Force Lossiemouth announced the passing of a “dear colleague”, who had served for 26 years as a “highly capable” aircraft technician and was serving on 1 (Fighter) Squadron.
He had been promoted to sergeant, which the RAF said reflected his professionalism, leadership and ability.
The technician, originally from Cwmbran in Wales, was married with three children and two grandchildren.
The statement from RAF Lossiemouth said: “While the RAF will deeply mourn his passing, the thoughts of everyone at RAF Lossiemouth are firmly with his wife Michelle, his mother Sally, his father Graham, his children Aaron, Katy and Ash, and his grandchildren, Lauren and Miles.”
Cpl Thorne arrived at Lossiemouth in 2007, where he first worked on the engineering operations squadron and the aircraft component engineering squadron before later joining 14 Squadron to work on Tornados.
After four years on armament engineering flight, he went on to be an instructor at the centralised line training section where he passed on his experience to the next generation of Tornado and Typhoon technicians. After a further five years with the Typhoon EJ200 early failure detection cell, he joined 1 (Fighter) Squadron in 2023.
Cpl Thorne served on five overseas operations, completing two tours on Operation Herrick in Afghanistan, two in Cyprus on Operation Shader and one deployment to the Falklands.
In 2014 the keen motorcyclist took part in an “RAF Way Round” challenge, visiting every air force station on a week-long, 3,000-mile journey to raise money for the RAF Benevolent Fund.
The RAF’s statement continued: “He was first and foremost a family man and this was demonstrated when he turned down a previous promotion offer because it would have meant leaving Moray, a place he and his family loved, and hoped to stay.”
RAF Lossiemouth’s station commander, Group Captain Jim Lee, said: “All of us at RAF Lossiemouth are joined together in grief following the sad loss of one of our dear colleagues, Corporal Dave Thorne.”