Flight Lieutenant John Peters is a former pilot of the British Royal Air Force.

Flight Lieutenant John Peters is a former pilot of the British Royal Air Force.

On the 17th January 1991 Reuters News Agency issued a press release which stunned the nation. It read:

"A British Tornado fighter-bomber has been lost during raids on Iraqi targets". According to military sources in the Gulf, the precise location of the incident and the fate of the two crew were unknown.

Flight Lieutenant John Peters was piloting the Tornado and in the following weeks the media followed the events closely with photographs. His battered face, a lasting image of the suffering and brutality of war.

John joined the RAF in 1980 as a university cadet and graduated from Manchester University in 1983. In 1987 he became a staff pilot at the Air Navigation School at RAF Finningley.

In 1988 he converted to Tornado GR1 and posted to XV Squadron at RAF Laarbruch in Germany. Deployed with his navigator John Nichol to Bahrain in December 1990 as part of Operation Desert Storm, they were taken captive after their aircraft was hit and forced to eject over the Iraqi desert.

After the war and a further tour with 31 Squadron at RAF Bruggen he has recently returned to England to take up a post as an instructor at the Tri National Tornado Training Establishment.

John has written two books: one on his POW experience and one covering life in a front-line squadron. He is currently studying for a Masters degree in Business Administration.

John has become one of the top-flight After-Dinner Speakers in the country and has been engaged as a conference motivational speaker for many Blue Chip Company corporate events in such venues as Athens, Paris, Turkey, Venice, Switzerland, USA and Portugal. Additionally, he has spoken at numerous events in Britain where his presentations have been classed as some of the best ever received.