Video: Military chopper exercises '˜to last more than a week'

Military chiefs say that the heavy helicopter activity in the Fife area is likely to continue for more than a week, after residents were woken in the night by loud bangs and low-flying aircraft.

A screengrab from Sandy McAndrew's video

An exercise is underway in the Fife area until Saturday September 16, meaning that the late-night disruption many people have experience could well continue until then.

Witnesses have been startled or woken up by helicopters, including chinooks, flying low over Fife and the Firth of Forth, with bangs heard coming from Inchkeith island late at night.

Military sources had initially been tight lipped on the nature of the increase in activity over the last few weeks.

A screengrab from Sandy McAndrew's video

However, after a number of attempts by the Press to contact the Ministry of Defence, a reponse eventually came.

An RAF spokesman said: “There is a routine training exercise currently taking place in numerous areas of Northern England and Scotland, the exercise is due to run until September 16.

“Chinook were operating in the vicinity of the Firth of Forth this week.”

Previously there had been no advance warning of the late-night chopper flights, meaning many people reported being unexpectedly woken up in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

A screengrab from Sandy McAndrew's video

Sandy McAndrew has seen a lot of activity on Inchkeith while out fishing.

He said: “It looked like they were practicing landing on different parts of the island.

“They were dropping off some people and picking others up. Some were carrying what looked like rocket launchers on their shoulders.”