An inquest has heard that a popular cold remedy could have played a part in the death of a former Dambusters pilot.
Flight Lieutenant Sean Cunningham was a highly-rated and popular members of the RAF’s Red Arrows display team and an Iraq War veteran.
He was fatally injured after he was ejected from the cockpit of his Hawk T1 jet while it was on the ground at an air force base in Lincolnshire.
The parachute on the ejector seat did not deploy, and the South African-born pilot later died in hospital.
The 35-year-old was a member of Lossiemouth-based 617 Squadron and flew Tornado GR4s in the Iraq War.
During the first day of the inquest into his death yesterday, coroner Stuart Fisher read the findings of a post-mortem examination report.
He said tests showed Flt Lt Cunningham had used Night Nurse, which includes the ingredient promethazine, the evening before the incident on November 8, 2011.
The inquest heard side-effects of the medication could include drowsiness, blurred vision, disorientation or poor concentration, and “could have been responsible for a degree of cognitive impairment”.
The report added there was no way of “proving this with certainty”.
However, in written evidence to the inquest another doctor reported it was very unlikely that any sedative effect had remained the following morning.
Some of Flt Lt Cunningham’s team-mates who were with him on the day of the incident told the inquest that he had appeared “chirpy” and “jovial” on November 8 and did not appear to be unwell or in an altered mood.
They had been preparing to fly in formation from RAF Scampton to RAF Valley in Wales when they heard a loud bang.
Flt Lt James McMillan said he was sitting in his aircraft and close to finishing his pre-flight checks, as was Flt Lt Cunningham who he could see from where he was positioned.
“I just heard what to me seemed like an enormous bang very, very close,” he told the inquest. “The first thing I thought was that there was something wrong with my aircraft because it was so close to me and I could feel it.”
Flt Lt McMillan said that once he had discounted the possibility the noise had come from his plane, he looked across at Flt Lt Cunningham, thinking he had had an “engine surge”.
“I assumed it must have been Sean and I looked across at him and that’s when I realised that things were not normal.”
Flt Lt McMillan said the canopy from the plane was missing and the ejector pole was sticking out, and he saw Flt Lt Cunningham was outside the aircraft, making him think he was going to see an ejection sequence in action.
“I remember thinking that something appeared wrong and I expected the sequence to be happening a lot quicker, and the main thing was that I thought I should have seen a parachute in his apex,” he said.
Flt Lt Cunningham was seen “windmilling” his arms in the air before hitting the ground while still strapped to his ejector seat.
The inquest heard that he fell from around 200-300ft. His cause of death was found to be from multiple injuries.
The inquest continues.