Hero pilot describes missile attack on Gaddafi's forces

A hero airman today told how a British fighter jet destroyed several of Colonel Gaddafi's tanks to stop them massacring civilians.

Wg Cdr Andy Turk, Tornado GR4 navigator, was in the first aircraft to fire Brimstone missiles last night at the regime's armoured vehicles near Ajdibaya.

He said: "An earlier sortie had identified armoured vehicles in an area near a town. We were tasked to go to the area and flew across and fairly quickly found a tank by the side of the main road away from any major built up areas.

"We targeted it with the dual-mode seeker Brimstone missile and identified it as a T72 tank.

"It was stationary but warm with its barrel pointing towards a town. Having ensured there were no civilians in the vicinity we fired a missile and guided it using the Litening targeting pod on the Tornado.

"The missile hit and penetrated the armour. There were secondary explosions which I believe were fuel and ammunition on board the tank."

Soon afterwards the British planes identified another T72 tank nearby which threatened the town.

"My wingman fired his missile with a direct hit again," said Wg Cmdr Turk.

"We then carried out some further investigations to make sure the rebels were not being out flanked by pro-regime forces and once we were confident with that we returned to scene of the first attacks where we found a third T72 tank. During this attack there were civilian vehicles driving in the vicinity so we aborted our attack until they were clear and then destroyed the tank. This was followed by the fourth and final attack which was again successful."

Rebel forces were then seen attacking the tanks which had been hit by British air strikes.