Tornado's 'crash landing' at centre

EASY does it . . . the Tornado is lifted into place at the new firefighter centre

A RARE Tornado fighter jet has been donated to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service for their Training and Safety Centre.

The Tornado will be involved in one of many scenarios being set up at the state-of-the-art training site to help give firefighters realistic training of the highest quality to help keep local communities safer.

Reaching speeds of up to 1,300 miles per hour, the aircraft was an early version of which only 18 were built. It last flew in 2014 before being decommissioned in 2015.

Now the jet will sit in a carefully fabricated plane crash scenario, involving a partially demolished house.

The multi-million pound Training and Safety Centre, due to open this spring in Bury, will help firefighters train for a whole range of incidents and other scenarios that could potentially happen in Greater Manchester.

Chris Wilson, from Jet Art aviation who installed the facility, said: "This F2 plane which was built in 1984 was donated by owners Qinetiq plc and will now serve as a training facility for firefighters and other emergency services, to help saves lives and keep the public safe.

Project manager Sean Booth said: "The reason we're installing this is so we can carry out our operational procedures should we ever have an aircraft come down in Greater Manchester."

"We're putting it next to our collapsed structures, so the scenario looks as though the plane has come down and hit the buildings."

Not only will this state of the art facility train our firefighters, the safety centre will also serve as an interactive experience for school children to learn about how to keep themselves and their communities safe.