The following is a press release from the Ministry of Defence regarding the scrapping of HMS Illustrious.
In 32 years of exemplary service, between 1982 and 2014, HMS Illustrious covered over 900,000 nautical miles. Operations ranged from stabilisation efforts in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War and delivering humanitarian aid after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in 2013.
In October 2013, the MOD launched a competition to seek innovative bids to retain the aircraft carrier in the UK. The aim of the competition was to see part or all of the ship developed for heritage purposes and, while a number of bids were received, none proved to be viable.
Minister for Defence Procurement Harriett Baldwin said:
We have done all we can for over two years to find a home for the former HMS Illustrious in the UK, and regrettably all options have now been exhausted.
It is with a sense of pride for her and her crews’ achievements that we say goodbye to the ship, and we look forward to the arrival in Portsmouth of the UK’s next generation of aircraft carriers.
The ship has now been sold to Turkish company LEYAL Ship Recycling Ltd for around £2 million.
Both Invincible and Ark Royal, the sister ships of Illustrious, were also recycled. It is anticipated that Illustrious will leave Portsmouth for Turkey in the autumn of this year, ahead of the arrival of the first of the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2017. The QEC aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy, will transform the Royal Navy’s ability to project our influence overseas, able to respond to crises, while promoting our prosperity and British values globally.
Mike Utley, former Commanding Officer on HMS Illustrious, said:
“Lusty provided a world-class service to the Royal Navy for over three decades. We will bid her farewell with a heavy heart but in the knowledge that everything has been done to find a use for her.
As the former aircraft carrier gets ready to leave Portsmouth, so we can look to the future and the arrival of the new Queen Elizabeth Class carriers, which will ensure that the Royal Navy continues to be a pre-eminent maritime power in the modern world.”
And we can’t recycle Because?
Oh that’s right 2 mill is hunners a dough! And we’re skint.
I thought we were selling it for peanuts but, interestingly, the spot price for 1 ton of scrap steel is £140 – so 20,000 ton Lusty is worth £2,800,000. Factor in towing and labour costs and there’s not as much fat in this for Turks as I’d assumed.
I thought this was the sort of thing that The Heritage Lottery Fund was established for? Another potential U.K. tourist attraction flushed down the bog, by a government who allegedly ‘champion’ our nation’s history.
Why we can’t keep her as a dedicated commando helicopter assault ship along with ocean is beyond me ! New carrier force with dedicated Royal marine amphibious assault force embarked on their ships seems obvious to me
Pity, but at least there are loads of other preserved vessels, Naval and Merchant, for people to enjoy around the UK coast.
Name em! How many are Aircraft Carriers? How many preserverved WW1
dreadnoughts or WW2 Battleships. Oh and how about the ships that got us through the Falklands and on which the Bargies surrendered.
What a sad end I thought she was going to be preserved as a lasting tribute to the aircraft carriers but sold to Turkey again as has happened to many ex rn warships we couldn’t even save HMS plkymouth or HMS edinborough we don’t preserve like the samericans do there meant to be skint but there naval history actually means something tho
We should have mothballed Ark Royal and Illustrious because they look like the only reserves we won’t have on a shooting war…