local witness heard 50 to 60 shots fired, then she saw the helicopter skimming over an open field just north of the border, near Derrygorry, in the Republic. The Gazelle, serial number ZB687, was hit by several rounds and lost oil pressure. The crew were forced to crash-land the machine, which broke up on impact. The RUC and British Army sealed off the scene as an investigation was mounted. The official report confirmed that the Gazelle had been on a reconnaissance flight. Three crew members were wounded in the crash, one of them a sergeant major from the KOSB, who suffered spinal injuries. None of the injured was hit by gunfire. Another crewmember survived unscathed. The incident was covered by an ITN news report, which shows the helicopter wreckage being examined by Army technicians. The remains were kept under armed guard for further forensic analysis for several days before being removed from the field. The Provisional IRA claimed in a statement that they had fired 300 rounds at the aircraft from two heavy machine-guns and three automatic rifles. Some sources have speculated whether the machine-guns were either Soviet-designed DShKs, part of the Libyan shipments to the IRA in the 1980s, or American M60s. The Gazelle was eventually written off. It was the first helicopter brought down in Northern Ireland by hostile fire since June 1988, when a Lynx was brought down in South Armagh. Aftermath The Gazelle shootdown raised fears that the Provisional IRA could have in mind another high-profile action before the end of the KOSB tour. After this and other attacks on security forces along the border in 1990, especially against permanent vehicle checkpoints, the troops were issued with .50 Browning machine guns and M203 grenade launchers. By 1992, the use of long-range weapons by the Provisionals, like mortars and heavy machine-guns, had forced the British Army to build its main checkpoints along the border one to five miles within Northern Ireland to avoid assaults launched from inside the Republic. From 1990 until the first Provisional IRA ceasefire in 1994, there were several IRA actions involving heavy weapons in the border areas of Tyrone and Fermanagh, not far from the site where the Gazelle crashed, at least four of them involving British Army helicopters. on 15 February 1991, a Lynx came under machine gun fire while extracting British troops a few miles south of Clogher, in County Tyrone.