Stephen Holdich

Stephen Holdich died in a helicopter crash in Cambridgeshire on 1 May 2007, aged 49. He was tractor mechanic at Halley in 1980 and 1981.

Stephen, who co-owned Hampshire-based Atlas Helicopters, was piloting the helicopter; three passengers also died in the crash. Media reports may be found by putting "Stephen Holdich" into Google.

Peter Gibbs, who wintered with him in 1980-81 says: "Terrible shock ; he was a lovely chap."

Richard Stewart recalls: I was saddened to hear of the death of Steve Holditch. Of course, he was tractor mechanic when I was South and I have fond memories of tearing across flat sea ice at high speed on a couple of the old tweaked Mercury skidoos with Steve. I reckoned he ported the engines etc to improve performance (I'm sure BAS HQ aren't meant to know anything about this). I also travelled down with him and I can remember a few antics in South America on the way out.... hmm.. was it the Crazy Horse club in Santiago? I think it was also the post-Falklands year when we went in through Cape Town, where Steve hired a car for the day and we went to the beach... we had to spend 5 days there before the ship left ! (tough life eh?). The only problem was Steve didn't have a driver's licence so he borrowed one off someone else and nearly let the cat out of the bag when he went to pay for it using a credit card with his (real) name on it !!!! A close shave ! I think those were the days before photos on driver's licences. Yeah, Steve was a good laugh and I am sorry to hear the news.... [20 June 2007]