A Tribute to Daily Risk

By Rich Cooper

This is always so tough. 

Having been immersed in squadron life for most of my photography years, one thing that I consistently walk away with (99% of the time) is how tight they are. 

Literally living and dying for each other. 

How every squadron tradition and every social activity, at its root, is designed to foster that brotherhood/sisterhood. 

I have had around half a dozen sinking, disbelieving occasions over 25+ years where someone that I worked with, shot in a cockpit, or was my escort has been killed… But I am nothing in the wider picture. To me, it’s utterly bewildering how units get through it. Having to go back the next day, their footprint still everywhere, and climb back into a cockpit and wonder… Jeez. it’s just awful.

Of course, grief is always a massive deal and part of being human. 

It’s different for every individual. Every single one.

Exactly a week on from the loss of an F-4E Phantom II from Andravida, with a crew I’d worked with, I wonder what it’s like where you’re part of a family that sees each other day in, day out, 20-30 family members. All of you working on one goal and each member putting their lives at risk every time they walk out the door. Then not one, but two don’t ever return.

Complicated. There’s a million questions and a million reasons. No one writes that in the technical manual or teaches it in flight school.

Someone said yesterday… “It takes one second to realise it’s going wrong. Another second to work out what to do. And there is no third second”.

There’s no right or wrong way to feel.

Rest in Peace, Marios (right) & Stathis (not pictured), F-4E Phantom II, 338 Squadron, Andravida, Hellenic AF. Lost in the Ionian Sea 30th January 2023.