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RAF Hercules inquest blames Ministry of Defence: family statements; Group Captain Mike Neville (Station Commander RAF Lyneham) along to press conference Group Captain Mike Neville (Station Commander RAF Lyneham) press conference SOT - On behalf of the Servicemen and women and our civilian colleagues at RAF Lyneham I would like to offer my continued support to the families who lost their loved ones when Hercules XV 179 was shot down over Iraq in January 2005. At that time I was the commander of the squadron concerned and was also the acting station commander and therefore, I know first hand how badly the loss of Steven Jones, David Williams, Bob O'Connor, Richie Brown, Mark Gibson, Gary Nicholson, Paul Pardoel, Andrew Smith, David Stead and Patrick Marshall affected us all at RAF Lyneham. However, no matter how badly it may have affected us it changed forever the lives of their families. The strength the families have shown, since that terrible day, as individuals and as a group has been truly remarkable and I know that their men would have been very proud of them. "It is this spirit that will see them through and it is this spirit that I and fellow commanders rely heavily upon when we deploy our personnel to operational theatres. Today, I have a large number of crews and aircraft deployed overseas in support of operations. It is important to the RAF as a Service to look after and support the needs of our personnel whether at home or overseas, but it is also just as important to us to support and address the concerns of their families. People often talk about the service family; tragic events such as this bring the importance of this term into sharp relief. On behalf of all at RAF Lyneham and indeed the Armed Forces I would like to offer my most sincere condolences and my unyielding support to the families of the crew of XV179 - we will not forget them. "Finally, I would like to thank the coroner for Swindon and Trowbridge, Mr David Masters for carryi...