David Beckham joined forces with the Prince of Wales to celebrate smashing a £15 million target to replace London’s ageing air ambulance helicopters.
William invited the former England football captain to get into the cockpit of one of the two new aircraft that will help ensure the vital service for Londoners continues for years to come.
Beckham met the prince at RAF Northolt in west London, where the two new helicopters were on display next to the aircraft they replaced.
The future king is patron of London’s Air Ambulance Charity which runs the service and when he met crew members he joked “don’t break it”.
William personally approached Beckham to be the public face of the Omaze house draw which raised £4 million for the charity’s Up Against Time helicopter appeal, which had a target of target £15 million but passed it, collecting £16 million.
The sporting star said: “We’re here today to celebrate … the success of the fundraiser for London’s air ambulances which is something close to my heart and has been for a number of years.
“I’m an East End boy so every time we saw them in the air it made us very proud.
“As soon as I was asked to be involved by Prince William it was something I was very honoured (to do) in all honesty.”
He added: “It’s something that’s been a part of London for a long long time, over 35 years of incredible work that the pilots do and the medics do, the millions of lives they’ve saved over the years is something I was very proud to be invited to be part of.”
William, who was a helicopter pilot in the RAF Search and Rescue Force before becoming a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance in Norfolk, talked Beckham through the controls of the new H135 helicopter, which goes into service from Tuesday, and later the prince signed both aircraft.
London’s Air Ambulance Charity was established in 1989 following a growing consensus of opinion that victims of serious accidents were dying because of the delay in expert medical help reaching them, and the time it took to transport patients to hospital.
The service pioneered the doctor-on-board model for air ambulances and aims to bring the hospital emergency department to the scene of an incident.
Former air ambulance patients were invited to the launch event, including Mark Smith, a military medals expert from the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.
Mr Smith was seriously injured in a road traffic accident and owes his life to the medical team on board an air ambulance and those at a hospital who “brought me back to life”.
He said: “I was dead, there was no way I was getting out of that one, I was finished.”
Mr Smith went on to say about the new fleet of helicopters: “We have to have these in London, they have to be everywhere these things because life really does hang by a thread and if that thread can be helped by these things it has to happen.
“I always say to people, that helicopter flying by, it’s not just a helicopter, there’s a life in the helicopter, but also there’s a whole world around that helicopter that’s praying for that thing to land.”
