Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life from the Longest Serving Female RAF Chinook Force Crewmember

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Just seconds from smashing into the ground, the co-pilot managed to regain control and the Chinook soared into the sky. They had escaped death by a hair’s breadth. On her final MERT operation, a US medic handed McConaghy a clear plastic bag with the severed foot of an American serviceman killed in action. Liz became the longest serving female Chinook aircrew member after serving for 17 years. Liz reflects on why she stayed for so long, and why she eventually had to leave.

This, it seems, saved her life. McConaghy started receiving counselling for PTSD from the charity Help For Heroes, and “cried for months, finally letting go of all the tears I had stored up inside me over the years that I had never let leak out from my eyes for fear of displaying weakness”.

Chinook Crew Chick

Yes, I have,” she said. “Having had the book come out [all her mental health challenges are] now completely out in the world. And the more I’m talking about it, the more it is genuinely OK now. If you are quite open and authentic about that then it gives other people a bit of an idea. If you’re struggling and for you, if you’re always saying the number 3 for a few days in a row, [and] you’re like ‘this isn’t good’, maybe speak to someone. When people ask twice, then sometimes that’s just enough to open the tiny tears tap.” McConaghy said that the most frequently asked, and least favorite, question over the years has been the challenges she has faced as a female crewman. Liz was only 21 when she became the youngest Chinook crewmember to serve in Iraq, and then became the longest serving female member.

Veterans are their own worst enemy.” McConaghy explained. “We never ask for help, mostly because it’s been bred into us. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be resilient. All those things that the military teach you to be becomes your make-up. So, it’s really hard to ask for help when you’re getting out [of the military] or are out. Upon leaving the RAF in 2019, Liz slowly unravelled after a series of traumatic events compounding her PTSD. This led to her trying to end her life in Aug 2020. Originally from a small town in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, she attended RAF Cranwell on her 19th birthday to begin her exciting career.I wrote the book when I was going through my PTSD counselling, and it took me 3 weeks to write because I just had to brain dump everything and it [was] just stored on my laptop and I never thought about it. Then a friend of mine and I were out walking and I mentioned it and she was like you’ve got to send this off to a publisher, what happens if somebody wants to publish it? Then it got published. It was never written in any way to be read by anyone, never mind the whole world, but seemingly everyone has really enjoyed it. As a resillience speaker and mental health speaker, Liz’s story offers hope to those who have also found themselves in the darkest places and are looking for the tools within themselves to begin rebuilding a pathway to a new life. Aged 21, Liz was the youngest member of the aircrew to deploy to Iraq and the only female crew member on the Chinook wing for four years, so her story is entirely unique. She survived and went into the Veterans Mental Health care system to help her deal with her demons and finally lay the images she had seen on the battlefield to rest.

We’re all really bad at saying: ‘I’m living the dream, things are great’. And, whenever you do get asked that question, give your mental health a number. Are you a six, a five or maybe a seven today? There are two reasons for that. Firstly, it helps you gauge where you are, so you’ll notice changes or not. If you’ve been at number three for a few weeks that’s not good. But if you can get everyone to use that system, it’s also a good measure for other people and help them notice how you’re doing.” I think that’s my new purpose, kind of helping others really, which is really good, I’m loving it.’ Find the thing that makes your skin tingle,” she said. “If it’s anything less than something that really lights your fire, you’re never going to get up and give it 100%, commit everything and throw yourself in headfirst. If you’re settling for what you’re doing, it’s not the right thing. Aim high and go for it! You’ll never know if you don’t try so just go for it.From dodging bullets to saving soldiers and witnessing the brutality and loss of war, Liz discusses how she found herself bringing the battlefield home, despite her fighting days being over. It tells me a lot about how my own mental state was by this time of the campaign as even this didn’t make me bat an eyelid or flinch,” she recalls. And I never not wanted to go and if I hadn’t gone, it meant somebody else had to go in my place. Somebody else [who] had to do an extra one or one of the new guys who wasn’t combat ready had to go instead when he wasn’t quite ready to go. I was always really worried that someone would have to take my bullet, you feel like if you don’t go, what if something happens and I’m meant to be there and I’m not? That kind of kept me in the job, certainly for those ten years. “ Today, McConaghy, 40, is thankfully in a much better place. She is proud of her time with the RAF and loved being a Chinook crewman. But she also knows the experience almost killed her and wants others in a similar position to know they can get help. I think if you want that extra ‘ohh, isn’t she amazing? Look, she’s the girl doing this job,’ you’re almost saying that they’re not capable of it in the first place.’