(Image: POPhot Lee Blease\/Royal Navy \/ SWNS)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/button><\/div>\n
Defence Secretary John Healey said he was “devastated” at the three deaths of personnel who “served with excellence and will be much missed”.<\/p>\n
Merlin helicopters, such as the Merlin Mk4 involved in the incident, typically carry a crew of four and are capable of transporting up to 24 troops.<\/p>\n
In 2024, a Merlin Mk4 ditched in the Channel during a training exercise, killing Lieutenant Rhodri Leyshon.<\/p>\n
The area lies between the Royal Navy’s air bases at Yeovilton in Somerset and Culdrose in Cornwall.<\/p>\n
The crash site is situated close to Okehampton battle camp, a military facility on the outskirts of Dartmoor which has been utilised for training Merlin helicopter crews from the Commando Helicopter Force.<\/p>\n
The Merlin helicopter is predominantly deployed for anti-submarine warfare, though the aircraft can also be used for search and rescue, cargo transfers and maritime patrol, according to the Royal Navy’s website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.walesonline.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ministry of Defence said the incident happened just before 4am on Wednesday and images show the destroyed aircraft at the scene in Devon – as tributes pour in from the Royal Family and senior officials Simon Hamalienko and Emma O’Neill Content Editor 17:10, 03 Jun 2026 Kate Middleton and Prince William ‘hold their families […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2443393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[23651],"class_list":["post-2443392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-kate-middleton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Kate-Middleton-saddened-as-Royal-Navy-helicopter-crash-in-Devon.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2443394,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443392\/revisions\/2443394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2443393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}