Liz summarised her experiences with mental health and shared her tips for those who are suffering, and those who know someone else who is suffering. So, how did McConaghy end up in such desperate circumstances? She had seen some terrible things on deployment during her service, not least flying on the medical flights recovering badly injured and dead soldiers from the battlefield. Then a close friend succumbed to terminal cancer and her own marriage to a soldier ended. And she tried to deal with it all on her own. PTSD doesn’t have to stay with you forever. It’s a chapter in my book, it’s not an anchor that I wear around my legs forever or a new label that I have to have forever,” she said. “I’ve met so many people via social media who tag themselves as the broken soldier or the forgotten veteran. But just like anything in your body, the bone you break or whatever, with the right time and methods you can heal, and you can move on and recover. I really want to get the message out – just because I had PTSD does not mean I have to have it forever.” My basic training, there were three of us which is good. My Shawbury course (RAF Shawbury, a helicopter training base), I was the only female crewman, then I was the only one on the Chinook force for [several] years, so I’m quite used to being in that environment. I was not the first female crewman by any stretch, there were a couple before me.

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. Liz was only 21 when she became the youngest Chinook crewmember to serve in Iraq, and then became the longest serving female member. Just like anything in our body that breaks, with time, rest and the right people to help you recover, we can mend our broken brains. I’ve closed the door on that dark tunnel and am walking a new, more positive path.” McConaghy was the longest-serving female crewman on the RAF Chinook Fleet, spanning a 17-year career on the aircraft.

Because it’s so hard to identify a firing point where the rounds are coming from, you just have to stand your ground at the mini-gun and pray that there’s a little Ready Brek glow surrounding you.” 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.

However, her most significant honour of all her duties was serving on the Medical Emergency Response Team, or MERT, flying ambulance as it was more commonly known. This involved recovering wounded soldiers from the battlefield, often under fire. AeroTime sat down with McConaghy to talk about the Chinook, women in the military and the importance of talking about our mental health.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. 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. I knew we were about to crash so I braced myself hard against the door frame and placed my hand on the release straps of my harness,” she said. Starting from such a young age, Liz reflected on where it all started, going with her brother to his BARB test. BARB stands for British Army Recruit Battery and is a computer-based psychometric test someone must take before they can serve in the Army, to decide if they are suitable. After calmly writing a suicide note to her family and friends, she began to swallow 95 pills, one by one, before closing her eyes for one last time, “my brain finally at peace”.

I think that’s my new purpose, kind of helping others really, which is really good, I’m loving it.’ 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.’ From 2007 McConaghy crewed the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), a high-octane M.A.S.H-style air ambulance service in which a Chinook was on constant readiness at Bastion to fly to the middle of the battlefield and rescue seriously wounded soldiers. On her busiest day of operations in 2008, she and her crew flew 14 separate sorties – including one where five British soldiers had been killed at a forward operating base. Liz turned to writing both poetry and her autobiography following a tough battle with PTSD years after leaving the service, in the hope it may help others with their mental health. 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.”With her hands tied together, McConaghy felt it “roll down my chest and all the way to my belly button. Still makes me cringe now thinking about it. But at least it distracted me from the screaming”. When I went to Iraq, I was the youngest aircrew member. Not only that, but I was limited combat ready. You learn to fly on a little helicopter, which is the Griffon (training helicopter) and then you get posted to whichever helicopter type you want to go on, and for me, that was always the Chinook.” The truth [is] none. The crewmen never once made me feel as though I was an outsider or special for being female. But I wasn’t a trailblazer either, there were crew gals before me, and plenty came after me and will continue to do so.”

The book is an honest and humorous account of Liz’s ‘ best of times and worst of times’ and how her experiences flying on the Chinook have changed and moulded her into the woman she has become. 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. When asked what she missed most about the military, McConaghy placed an emphasis on “the people, the banter, the chats” but also said she misses “the smell of the aircraft”. 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.

Does McConaghy have any words of wisdom for people thinking of following the same kind of career path? The bad stuff is the same stuff that everyone else goes through, not so much the PTSD and mental health.” The book touches on, but is not dominated by, the theme of women in the armed forces. This is a topic that has been constantly in the UK news following a series of sex-related scandals. But McConaghy is pragmatic, explaining that in her experience, the men have never treated her or the only other female on her squadron any differently. 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.