Wednesday, October 8, was scheduled to be a training day for all of South Holland’s police officers and PCSOs to receive training about new legislation to tackle anti-social behaviour.
The training, which had started at 9am, was still ongoing when the first report of a military aircraft crashing in Weston Hills was received.
Spalding’s community policing inspector Jim Tyner, who was due to work 8am to 4pm that day, had started at 6:30am to review recent crime in South Holland.
Here, in his words, Insp Tyner takes us through how things panned out after the USAF F-15 jet came down…
3:45pm: The training day was getting close to the end when I received a phone to say that a military aircraft had crashed in Weston Hills. All those PCSOs that lived close by went immediately home to collect their uniform. The rest returned with me to the police station, where we foraged for enough high-visibility jackets for everyone.
The emergency response inspector was already at Weston Hills coordinating resources, so I remained at Spalding Police Station, providing a supporting role. By this time officers from across the county were starting to arrive. While officers at the scene were setting up a safety cordon, my priority was setting up a rendezvous point and keeping a track of which officers were arriving, so that no one got lost in the initial confusion.
4:12pm: I put out my first message on Twitter, but I didn’t yet have enough details of which roads were closed. I spoke with our media officer and at 4:16pm put out our first media release.
While preparing this I was receiving updates from the scene that there were a large number of cars in the area hampering access for emergency services. I put out a request on social media for people to avoid the area, but this was to no avail.
5pm: For the next hour I kept repeating safety warnings and information messages. I arranged for the local PCSO to open Weston Hills Village Hall, to act as a focal point for residents. I spoke on the telephone with MP John Hayes, asking him to feed back to me any concerns from residents that we may have overlooked.
6pm: I updated the superintendent with what was happening at the scene, what plans we were putting in place and what information we were releasing through the media.
6:30pm: It was time to start planning some resilience: how many officers were on duty? How many had been on since 7am and would need to be released from the scene? It was time to start calling out off-duty officers.
At the same time, Sgt Hall arranged for a local supermarket to make up some sandwiches. These were taken to the officers on the cordon. This was my first opportunity to pause for breath. Thanks to a heavy rainfall and oncoming darkness, traffic around the cordon was finally easing.
8pm: I prepared another media update and this was posted on our website. I then checked the arrangements for overnight resources and updated the chief inspector. I made a note of things to be done the next day.
9:30pm: With all arrangements in place for overnight patrols, it was time for home. Some of my PCSOs were still at cordon points. Police officers who had been on duty since 7am were just going off duty, due on again at 7am the following morning.
No one moaned; no one demurred from their duty.
My role may not have been an exciting one, but I felt incredibly proud at how my officers had responded to an exceptional event.
