In 1976 southern County Armagh was declared off-limits by the British Army to routine military vehicle traffic, including patrols, because the danger posed by an IRA landmine attack was considered too great.

[1] This reliance on helicopters made the British security base at Bessbrook Mills, County Armagh, the busiest heliport in Europe, with an average of 600 flights arriving and departing every week.

To accommodate the underslung load the pilots had to fly relatively low and were restricted to a maximum speed of 60 knots; internal cargo stowage which needed to be unloaded on the ground left helicopters vulnerable to attack from IRA mortars.

[9] The second Lynx, undamaged, landed nearby but the crew of ZE380, concerned that locals sympathetic to the IRA might destroy the downed aircraft outright, opted to maintain their position at the site, armed with the GPMG and two compact HK53 carbines.

[6] A British Army board of inquiry commissioned in the aftermath of the shootdown found that despite the presence of door gunners and a mutually supporting aircraft "the terrorists were not deterred" and that it was "only by a stroke of luck" that the crew weren't killed.

The board recommended that flying of underslung loads into "hostile areas" cease, that a "more effective weapons system" be fitted to aircraft and a study into protection of Lynx vulnerable and vital components be undertaken "as a matter of urgency".

[9] Journalist and author Brendan O'Brien writing on the incident commented: In security terms, the significant factor was that no RUC or British Army personnel came on the scene for a protracted period of time.