Rally champion Colin McRae dies with son in helicopter crash

By Sethos
in The Sporting Arena

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Martyn

Posted
Posted
Rally champion Colin McRae, his five-year-old son, a six-year-old boy and a family friend have been killed in a helicopter crash.

Strathclyde Police released the names of the four people they thought were on board the crashed aircraft on Saturday.

Mr McRae, 39, his son Johnny, the youngster's friend Ben Porcelli and family friend Graeme Duncan, 37, were all thought to be on board.

Formal identification is expected in the next few days.

Ch Supt Tim Love from Strathclyde Police said the crash was not survivable and it was very difficult to tell the aircraft had been a helicopter.

He added that the families have been shattered by the news.

Air accident investigators have started searching the helicopter crash site near Mr McRae's home in Lanarkshire on Saturday.

The Scottish Subaru Imprezza Owners' Club have been leaving tributes at the entrance to the house.

About 40 firefighters attended the accident which happened in woods just north of Lanark at 1600 BST.

Motorsport pays tribute

Users of the rally champion's official website www.colinmcrae.com were greeted by a black screen on Sunday with no information available.

Police have been at the scene throughout the night and a cordon has been thrown around the area, including a private road up to the McRae family home.

Mr McRae, who is married with two young children, was Britain's first rally world champion in 1995 and is the son of five times British rallying champion Jimmy McRae.

Wider fame

Mr McRae admitted to enjoying the adrenaline rush of activities such as bungee jumping and was a keen pilot.

Nicky Grist, his co-driver since 1997, said: "Colin was always regarded as being a bit of a risk-taker in cars, but when it came to flying a helicopter he was a totally different man.

"The one thing he always told me, he said 'You don't mess about with a helicopter. They are bigger and better than I am and you have to drive them as such."

Mr McRae moved to the principality of Monaco in 1995, partly through his friendship with David Coulthard.

But as his family grew up, he spent more time back at his home in Lanarkshire. He and his wife Alison bought the 17th century Jerviswood House.

Rev Bryan Kerr, minister of Lanark Greyfriars Church and a neighbour of the McRae family, said: "A lot of people have been stunned by this and our thoughts go out to all of the families affected.

"This will be hugely devastating, particularly in such a small community. You just don't expect these things to happen on your doorstep especially when it is someone who is so well known and well liked in the town.

"The town's ministers have spoken to each other and special prayers will be offered for all those affected by the tragedy and remembering those who are working on the rescue efforts and trying to piece together what happened."

First Minister Alex Salmond said: "Colin McRae was an outstanding Scottish sportsman of international stature and achievement.

"His death is a great tragedy, and my thoughts and condolences are with all the families and friends bereaved by this terrible accident."

Video games

His brother, Alister, is also a professional rally driver and has enjoyed some success, including winning the British Rally Championship in 1995.

Mr McRae's sister is a doctor at the University Hospital in County Durham and she too enjoys rally driving.

Police at Colin McRae's home

The crash happened near the rally champion's home

He also achieved wider fame by endorsing a range of successful video games. Codemasters released the first Colin McRae Rally title in 1998.

'Colin McRae: DiRT' was the title for the latest instalment of the games series which launched this year on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Stars from the world of motorsport have been paying tribute to Mr McRae.

Fellow Scot and Formula One ace David Coulthard, said: "He and Alison were good friends and I cannot imagine either without the other.

"He was fearless, flamboyant, blindingly quick in the car.

"We had some great times and his passing is a terrible blow for the McRae family and everyone who came in contact with him."

Well it has been confirmed now. It is such a shame that his five year old son died, not to mention one of his sons friends - a six year old. It must of been a terrible crash for the debris not to have been recognisable as a helicopter...I suppose that is also why the bodies where not ID'd straight away. Such a tragic accident :(.

Rest In Peace Colin McRae and all those who died alongside him :(

Proficient

MagicMan

Posted
Posted

OMG - that is insane! Some coincidence.

Its a sad day for the world of motorsport - my thoughts are with his wife who has to face losing a son and a husband in the same day - terrible :(

R.I.P Colin McRae

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Halo: Campaign Evolved is out next month with new prequel missions

      By LoneWolfSL · Posted

      Halo: Campaign Evolved is out next month with new prequel missions by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Microsoft offered a look at the upcoming Halo: Combat Evolved remake at the Xbox Games Showcase today. The Halo Studios-developed title is not only getting a fully remade campaign, but also new content in the form of a fresh story arc featuring Sgt. Johnson. Fans don't have to wait long, either, as Halo: Campaign Evolved is releasing next month. The new content joining the original campaign consists of three new missions that have the name "Operation: METEORITE" attached to the full project. Aside from ground-based combat, space missions are also included here. These prequel missions will take players to events set before the original campaign, where the Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson duo team up for a clandestine UNSC operation aboard a Covenant research vessel. The studio says that the story for these missions was written in collaboration with award-winning sci-fi author Troy Denning. "Operation: METEORITE gives players a chance to expand their experience with new locations, new enemy variants, more weapons from across the Halo series, and new ways to play within the Halo sandbox, all while getting to spend more time with beloved characters and witness a new event that adds to the legacy of their heroic history," adds Halo Studios. Today's new trailer showed off the game in action, including the new missions. Catch it below. Halo Campaign Evolved is coming out on July 28, 2026. It will be available across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 with a $49.99 price tag. A digital premium edition will also be available for $69.99, offering five days of early access, extra in-game skins, and a digital art collection. A $199.99 physical Collector's Edition is also incoming, bringing a Master Chief statue, a Cortana chip, a Steelbook case, and more.
    • This Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 32GB RAM with RGB is a great deal for limited time

      By Arceles · Posted

      To give context to everybody, I bought about 2 sets of RAM, ddr4, 3200, 64 gb, 2 years ago. It costed me 150 usd for each set. If you buy RAM now you only incentivate companies to sell you expensive stuff, as Nvidia did.
    • KillerPDF 1.4.2

      By Copernic · Posted

      KillerPDF 1.4.2 by Razvan Serea KillerPDF is a lightweight, portable PDF editor for Windows built for users who want full control without subscriptions, installers, or telemetry. It runs as a single executable, making it ideal for USB use and field work. You can view PDFs with smooth PDFium rendering, navigate quickly with thumbnails, zoom, and shortcuts, and reorganize pages using drag-and-drop. It supports merging multiple PDFs, splitting documents, and extracting selected pages. KillerPDF also allows inline text editing with font matching to preserve the original layout, plus annotations like text boxes, freehand drawing, highlights, and reusable signatures. You can search full text, copy content easily, and print documents with flattened annotations. Designed as a free and open alternative to bloated PDF tools, it works fully offline on Windows 10/11 x64. No runtimes install. Everything needed is inside the EXE (targets .NET Framework 4.8, which ships with every supported Windows release). KillerPDF key features: High-quality PDF rendering via PDFium Edit PDF text inline (double-click to modify text) Page thumbnails and fast navigation with zoom and shortcuts Merge multiple PDFs into one Split PDFs and extract selected pages Drag-and-drop page reordering Font matching to preserve original document appearance Text boxes for notes Freehand drawing tools Highlight overlays with adjustable color, size, opacity Undo actions and clear per-page annotations Create, draw, and save reusable signatures Click-to-place signatures anywhere Full-text search with highlighted results Drag-select or Ctrl+A to copy text Print with annotations flattened Portable single-file app (~10 MB) No installer, no admin rights required No account, no telemetry KillerPDF 1.4.2 changelog: What's new PDF form filling. Interactive PDF forms now render their fields (text inputs, checkboxes, radio buttons) as live controls. Fill them in directly and save — field values are written back into the PDF. PDF outline (bookmark) navigation. A new OUTLINES tab in the sidebar displays the document's bookmark tree. Click any entry to jump to that page. The sidebar auto-fits its width to the longest entry on open and can be dragged wider; switching back to PAGES snaps to the pages-mode width. Fixed Page rotation no longer reverts after saving. Rotations applied via the sidebar context menu now persist correctly through the save pipeline. Copied text words were out of order on PDFs where glyphs are stored in non-reading order (Issue #66). Text extraction now sorts words by position and uses a dynamic line-grouping threshold so both drag-select and Select All produce correctly ordered output. PDFs with malformed or non-standard XRef tables now open in read-only mode instead of showing "Invalid entry in XRef table" and failing entirely. Download: KillerPDF 1.4.2 | 6.1 MB (Open Source) Link: KillerPDF Home Page | Github | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • This Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 32GB RAM with RGB is a great deal for limited time

      By fingletmein · Posted

      "...a low price of just $340..." I don't think it means what you think it means.
    • This Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 32GB RAM with RGB is a great deal for limited time

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      This Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 32GB RAM with RGB is a great deal for limited time by Sayan Sen Memory prices have been through the roof for a while, though it seems like things might finally be getting better. If you are in the market for one, then grab this Corsair Vengeance DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 6000 CL36 kit with RGB for a low price of just $340 (purchase link under the specs table down below). The kit is compatible with both AMD and Intel systems as it supports both EXPO and XMP overclocking profiles, respectively. 6000 MT/s is often the sweet spot for many systems as it provides ample data transfer speed while still being on Gear 1 mode. This Vengeance variant has RGB so if you love bright setups with such lighting, this is a win-win for you. The technical specifications of the Corsair Vengeance memory kit are given in the table below: Specification Value Memory Type DDR5 Memory Size (Total) 32GB Kit Configuration 2 × 16GB Form Factor UDIMM (Desktop) Pin Count 288-pin Speed (Data Rate) 6000 MT/s Speed Rating PC5-48000 Tested CAS Latency 38-44-44-96 Voltage (Tested) 1.35V Performance Profile AMD EXPO & Intel XMP Heat Spreader Aluminum heatspreader Cooling Type Passive (Heatsink) Lighting Ten Zone RGB Software Support Corsair iCUE Get it at the link below: CORSAIR Vengeance RGB DDR5 32GB (2 x 16GB) 6000 CL38 – Gray (CMH32GX5M1E6000Z38): $339.99 (Sold and Shipped by Woot US, Fulfilled by Amazon US) This Woot deal is US-specific and not available in other regions unless specified. This is a first-party seller link (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you also purchase from a first-party seller link only. If you don't like it or want to look at more options, check out the previous deals that we have covered, OR you can also visit Amazon US deals page. Get Prime (SNAP), Prime Video, Audible Plus or Kindle / Music Unlimited. Free for 30 days. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      479
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      244
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      72
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      66
    5. 5
      Skyfrog
      65
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!