Page 84 - AGC-Journal-2016

AGC JOURNAL 2016

Defence Section Kuala Lumpur

No Ordinary Job

By Warrant Officer Class 2 Neil Anderson

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia in July 2014 and

took up the appointment of
Assistant Defence Advisor at
the Defence Section, British
High Commission.

Shortly after my arrival, I received a phone
call from a young lady claiming to be the
granddaughter of an elder who owned the
land surrounding a British Memorial in
Borneo. She continued to stress that her
grandfather had not been compensated by
the United Kingdom for its maintenance
since 2008 and now wanted the memorial
removed from his land. After searching
for details of the memorial and checking Neil Anderson at the crash site looking at some of the
remaining parts
though the High Commission archives, Below: The actual Belvedere Helicopter
it became apparent that the memorial in Below right: The SAS Patrol
question was the Trusan Valley Crash from
back in 1963.

Background Helicopter XG473 took off from Brunei the Trusan Valley. He arrived in Labuan,
and, although its exact destination was not and was told of the missing XG473, and
revealed, it was believed to be heading for realised what he had seen. A search was
It is little known that during the Ba Kalan and Bario. Fully laden, it suffered launched, but mists closed down the valley
confrontation with Indonesia, two twin a catastrophic mechanical failure and and access at the time was impossible. In
rotor Belvedere helicopters from 66 crashed in the Trusan Valley on the East addition, the Brunei rebellion was drawing
Squadron Royal Air Force were based side of the Trusan River at approximately to a close and confrontation was building
in Brunei and were defending against 1000 hrs, killing all nine passengers and up so there was no security in the area.
Indonesian infiltrators. On the 4th May crew. Smoke was seen rising from the area
1963 the Royal Air Force Belvedere by a pilot of another aircraft flying down

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