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On page 12 of Helicopter Life Spring 2011 we had the story of the Dutch naval Lynx helicopter captured on a beach near the city of Sirte, Libya, during an evacuation mission. What exactly went wrong was then not known. At the time, the Dutch Ministry of Defence said that the crew were prevented from taking off by armed Libyan men loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Otte Beeksma, a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Defence also said that the crew were trying to evacuate a Dutch citizen.

Questions were asked by politicians in the Hague, political centre of the Netherlands. Was it really necessary to evacuate the Dutch citizen while 'regular' flights out of Libya were still being flown? Some critics even questioned why 'we' are not able to retrieve one person while the British extracted a couple of hundred people in secret operations?