Sqn Ldr John Peters 'Tornado Down 30 Years On' RAF Club Online Event 28th January 2021

Sqn Ldr John Peters, a current Trustee of the RAF Club, previously served as an RAF Pilot during the first Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. In this unique online event, held to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the campaign, Sqn Ldr Peters will talk first-hand about the fateful daylight sortie on Ar Rumaylah airfield, which resulted in his capture, imprisonment and a flurry of international media coverage. John and his Navigator John Nichol, became familiar faces, with their battered and beaten images pictured across newspapers and television in the days that followed. At the end of the war, after seven weeks in captivity, both Pilot and Navigator were repatriated back to the UK. After being released, John received around 25,000 letters from well-wishers following the appearance. He said that he was "treated very specially" as a result of his experiences and found it difficult to live up to the image the public had of him. John Peters returned to the RAF for a further ten years before moving into consultancy, becoming a best-selling author, performance coach and speaker. This special event will take the form of a talk plus Q&A and will be hosted by Club Trustee, Grp Capt Al Lockwood.