British helicopters could shoot themselves down

According to an Agence France-Presse report dated Wednesday, March 26, 2002, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense said Tuesday it was addressing reports that the army's Apache helicopters can be shot down by their own anti-tank missiles. Several daily papers have reported that the special Apache helicopters are unable to fire missiles from the left side due to debris ejected as the weapons are fired could damage the rotor on the left side of the tail and bring the aircraft down. Following the news paper reports an unidentified spokesman for Westland was reported to say, "They can fire from both sides but there is a small problem if they fire from the same side as the (rear) rotor." The United Kingdom has purchased bought 67 Apache/Longbow helicopters for 1.8 billion pounds (US$2.6 billion dollars, 2.9 billion euros). Longbow Apache WAH-64D "tankbuster" helicopter is built by the British company Westland under license from the US manufacturer Boeing.