{"id":619224,"date":"2026-06-03T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619224\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:00:09","slug":"uk-royal-navy-helicopter-crash-leaves-3-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619224\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Royal Navy helicopter crash leaves 3 dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A helicopter from\u00a0<a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/united-kingdom\/t-60783992\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Britain&#8217;s Royal Navy<\/a> crashed\u00a0in southwest England during a training exercise, the Navy confirmed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft, a Merlin Mk4 helicopter, went down in a field\u00a0just before 4 a.m.\u00a0It wasn&#8217;t immediately clear what caused the incident.<\/p>\n<p>Navy chief general Gwyn Jenkins confirmed the events\u00a0in a statement, saying that he was &#8220;deeply saddened to share the news that three crew members onboard a Royal Navy\u00a0Merlin Mk4 helicopter have died after it crashed in the early hours of this morning near Sourton, Devon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Merlin helicopters\u00a0are primarily used for anti-submarine warfare, but also for search and rescue, cargo transfers and maritime patrol, according to the Royal Navy&#8217;s\u00a0website.<\/p>\n<p>They usually have a crew of four and have the capacity to carry\u00a0up to 24 troops.<\/p>\n<p>Investigation underway<\/p>\n<p>Britain&#8217;s Ministry of Defense said the families of the victims\u00a0have been informed.<\/p>\n<p>UK Prime Minister\u00a0<a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/keir-starmer\/t-69584184\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Keir Starmer<\/a> said the deaths were &#8220;utterly tragic&#8221;\u00a0and expressed his &#8220;thoughts and sympathies&#8221; with the victim&#8217;s loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>Jenkins said an investigation is underway and further updates will be provided as they come along.<\/p>\n<p>Edited by: Zac Crellin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A helicopter from\u00a0Britain&#8217;s Royal Navy crashed\u00a0in southwest England during a training exercise, the Navy confirmed on Wednesday. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-619224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}