Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life from the Longest Serving Female RAF Chinook Force Crewmember

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You do a six-month school called the UCF, which is where you work up to learn how to operate and then you get sent to your first squad, which for me was 27 and then you have to do what’s called a combat ready work up. So that is essentially learning how to operate the Chinook when you’re getting combat ready. You learn what rules you can bend when you’re at war; if you’re getting shot at, what you can and can’t get away with.

From dodging bullets to saving soldiers and witnessing the brutality and loss of war, Liz discusses how she found herself bringing the battlefield home, despite her fighting days being over. The truth [is] none. The crewmen never once made me feel as though I was an outsider or special for being female. But I wasn’t a trailblazer either, there were crew gals before me, and plenty came after me and will continue to do so.” We’re all really bad at saying: ‘I’m living the dream, things are great’. And, whenever you do get asked that question, give your mental health a number. Are you a six, a five or maybe a seven today? There are two reasons for that. Firstly, it helps you gauge where you are, so you’ll notice changes or not. If you’ve been at number three for a few weeks that’s not good. But if you can get everyone to use that system, it’s also a good measure for other people and help them notice how you’re doing.” Upon leaving the RAF in 2019, Liz slowly unravelled after a series of traumatic events compounding her PTSD. This led to her trying to end her life in Aug 2020. I think that’s my new purpose, kind of helping others really, which is really good, I’m loving it.’

Liz McConaghy

Yes, I have,” she said. “Having had the book come out [all her mental health challenges are] now completely out in the world. And the more I’m talking about it, the more it is genuinely OK now. Starting from such a young age, Liz reflected on where it all started, going with her brother to his BARB test. BARB stands for British Army Recruit Battery and is a computer-based psychometric test someone must take before they can serve in the Army, to decide if they are suitable. I wrote the book when I was going through my PTSD counselling, and it took me 3 weeks to write because I just had to brain dump everything and it [was] just stored on my laptop and I never thought about it. Then a friend of mine and I were out walking and I mentioned it and she was like you’ve got to send this off to a publisher, what happens if somebody wants to publish it? Then it got published. It was never written in any way to be read by anyone, never mind the whole world, but seemingly everyone has really enjoyed it.

With her hands tied together, McConaghy felt it “roll down my chest and all the way to my belly button. Still makes me cringe now thinking about it. But at least it distracted me from the screaming”. Because it’s so hard to identify a firing point where the rounds are coming from, you just have to stand your ground at the mini-gun and pray that there’s a little Ready Brek glow surrounding you.” Liz became the longest serving female Chinook aircrew member after serving for 17 years. Liz reflects on why she stayed for so long, and why she eventually had to leave.McConaghy said that the most frequently asked, and least favorite, question over the years has been the challenges she has faced as a female crewman. If you are quite open and authentic about that then it gives other people a bit of an idea. If you’re struggling and for you, if you’re always saying the number 3 for a few days in a row, [and] you’re like ‘this isn’t good’, maybe speak to someone. When people ask twice, then sometimes that’s just enough to open the tiny tears tap.” I think if you want that extra ‘ohh, isn’t she amazing? Look, she’s the girl doing this job,’ you’re almost saying that they’re not capable of it in the first place.’ The book is an honest and humorous account of Liz’s ‘ best of times and worst of times’ and how her experiences flying on the Chinook have changed and moulded her into the woman she has become. AeroTime sat down with McConaghy to talk about the Chinook, women in the military and the importance of talking about our mental health.

And I never not wanted to go and if I hadn’t gone, it meant somebody else had to go in my place. Somebody else [who] had to do an extra one or one of the new guys who wasn’t combat ready had to go instead when he wasn’t quite ready to go. I was always really worried that someone would have to take my bullet, you feel like if you don’t go, what if something happens and I’m meant to be there and I’m not? That kind of kept me in the job, certainly for those ten years. “ From 2007 McConaghy crewed the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), a high-octane M.A.S.H-style air ambulance service in which a Chinook was on constant readiness at Bastion to fly to the middle of the battlefield and rescue seriously wounded soldiers. On her busiest day of operations in 2008, she and her crew flew 14 separate sorties – including one where five British soldiers had been killed at a forward operating base. The bad stuff is the same stuff that everyone else goes through, not so much the PTSD and mental health.”Liz turned to writing both poetry and her autobiography following a tough battle with PTSD years after leaving the service, in the hope it may help others with their mental health. My basic training, there were three of us which is good. My Shawbury course (RAF Shawbury, a helicopter training base), I was the only female crewman, then I was the only one on the Chinook force for [several] years, so I’m quite used to being in that environment. I was not the first female crewman by any stretch, there were a couple before me. After calmly writing a suicide note to her family and friends, she began to swallow 95 pills, one by one, before closing her eyes for one last time, “my brain finally at peace”. Today, McConaghy, 40, is thankfully in a much better place. She is proud of her time with the RAF and loved being a Chinook crewman. But she also knows the experience almost killed her and wants others in a similar position to know they can get help.