There was drama in the skies above Bath this evening after a civilian helicopter falsely sent out an emergency signal leading to two fighter jets coming to the City.
Just after 6pm, the noise of the two military jets was heard across Bath, with many people tweeting us @NOWBath to see what the aircraft were doing. The MOD have now confirmed that they were responding to a helicopter near Peasedown St. John which had mistakenly sent out an emergency signal suggesting it had been hijacked.
The Eurofighter Typhoons were dispatched to Bath following the rogue signal, however on their way from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, the sonic boom they caused led residents across the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire to phone emergency services reporting a loud bang.
The MoD revealed it was from a Typhoon responding to the emergency call in the skies above Bath.
It said the aircraft were already on their way to the helicopter by the time the pilot had realised he was transmitting on the wrong frequency and switched to the correct one.
It told ITV News: “We can confirm that a small civilian aircraft was transmitting inadvertently on an emergency frequency at approximately 1810. Two typhoons from the Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) responded accordingly and authorisation was given from them to go supersonic which resulted in the sonic boom. There was no actual threat to the civilian aircraft and they soon rectified their mistake.“
Some of the tweets we received included:
“This fighter jet zooming around above Bath at the mo is fekking loud, are we under attack?” – @rustywhite1984
“My other half had the fighter jet above his head, very low and very loud, up in Monkton Combe. It was following a helicopter” – @RoooPooo
The fighter jets are reported to have got close enough to identify the tail markings of the helicopter before finally making contact with the pilot.
