A FORMER Army captain told an inquest he could not remember shouting out “Yeeha, Jester’s dead” moments before a helicopter plummeted to the ground.

Robert Earle quoted the famous phrase from hit movie Top Gun while taking part in a military training exercise in North Yorkshire with young soldiers on board the RAF Puma.

Moments later, the aircraft crashed, killing three people and injuring nine others.

Among those hurt was copilot Flight lieutenant Robert Hamilton, who was left paraplegic from his injuries.

The inquest, at Harrogate Magistrates’ Court, heard yesterday how Flt Lt Hamilton was involved in several near misses during another training exercise only days before the fatal crash.

Mr Earle, a former captain with the Black Watch regiment, initially blamed himself for the accident, the hearing heard.

But he told coroner Geoff Fell he had since changed his mind.

He said he believed the helicopter was being flown safely on the day of the crash, adding: “I don’t believe I encouraged the aircrew.

“At no point in time did I urge them to fly harder, faster, lower.”

Asked what he might have meant by the phrase, which was picked up on the cockpit voice recorder, Mr Earle said: “I believe I made that comment because we were in a situation with young men who were doing something exciting.

“I didn’t feel outside my comfort zone. A manoeuvre had just been executed. I looked back at my soldiers and they were smiling.”

The voice recorder also picked up crew members laughing and joking moments before the crash.

One voice can be heard saying “s***, s***, s***”.

Another person jokes that they might need to “check the tail for trees”.

Mr Earle said the flight was an unscheduled exercise arranged by him to give recruits who had been sick or injured a morale boost and experience of being in a helicopter.

Flight Lieutenant David Sale, 28, from Norton, near Stockton, crewman Sergeant Phillip Burfoot, 27, and Private Sean Tait, of The Royal Regiment of Scotland, died when the Puma helicopter came down in a field near Catterick Garrison, on August 8, 2007.

The hearing heard how the helicopter was being flown fast and low over the North Yorkshire countryside before the crash.

Several concerned people called RAF Leeming and the police about the manoeuvres.

The inquest was told that, earlier in the day, the Puma had circled the home of Mark Temple, a friend of Captain Rupert Smedley, a passenger on the Puma at the time.

The inquest saw video footage taken by Capt Smedley as the helicopter circled the house. The clip showed family members taking pictures of the aircraft.

Capt Smedley said he also believed the helicopter was being flown safely before it crashed.

He said: “If the pilot was conducting something that was dangerous, I would point it out to the crew member.”

Flt Lt Hamilton admitted he had been placed on air warning to improve his navigational skills the week before the Catterick incident, after several near misses.

The inquest continues.