07/09/2026
What an inspirational woman and how humble she is in accepting her medal but reminding everyone that it was a team effort
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She made RAF history, but when Michelle Goodman was told she would receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, her first instinct was not to talk about herself.
She talked about her crew.
On the night of June 1, 2007, then Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman was serving her third tour in Iraq as a Merlin helicopter pilot when her crew was suddenly called to their aircraft.
A British soldier had been critically wounded in a mortar attack in Basra City.
Rifleman Stephen Vause had suffered devastating injuries and urgently needed to be flown to hospital. The landing area had not been used by helicopters for roughly two years, the ground was thick with dust, and the area around it was under attack from small-arms fire and rockets.
There was no ideal landing zone waiting for them.
There was simply a wounded soldier who needed someone to come.
Flying with night-vision goggles, Goodman brought the Merlin into the area while her crew worked around her. As the helicopter descended, dust swallowed the aircraft. The medics immediately left the Merlin and began treating Vause.
Then the helicopter’s defensive system reacted to a possible threat and released flares.
They could not remain there.
With Vause aboard, the crew got out of the area and delivered him to the medical care he desperately needed. He survived.
For her actions that night, Goodman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 2008, becoming the first woman in the Royal Air Force to receive the decoration.
Yet she repeatedly resisted taking the credit alone.
“The medics… deserve all of the credit,” she later said, praising the people who kept Vause alive. She also spoke of her navigator, crewmen, engineers and everyone whose work put that Merlin in the air.
“It’s clearly not just for me.”
That may say as much about Michelle Goodman as the medal itself.
She flew into a dangerous landing zone because a British soldier was waiting on the ground. Then, when the nation recognised her courage, she pointed back toward the people who had stood beside her.
Later, Goodman continued supporting servicemen and women through charity work, helping raise money for Help for Heroes before preparing for another deployment, this time to Afghanistan.
Michelle Goodman earned a place in RAF history as its first female recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
But the story behind that distinction was never simply about being the first.
It was about a pilot, a crew, a wounded rifleman, and the old military promise that when one of your own is in trouble, you go and bring them home.
Today, we honour Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman and the entire Merlin crew whose courage, professionalism and teamwork helped save a soldier’s life that night in Basra.
