Story ID: 133BlueThunderAIN0817
Blue Thunder Fighting London Terror 
By: Mark Huber
Caption: The unit was established in 2015.
Word Count: 253
Londoners recently got their first look at a special-forces anti-terrorism squad nicknamed Blue Thunder. Members of the 70-member squad deployed from unmarked dark-blue Airbus Helicopters AS365N3 Dauphins onto London Bridge following the June 3 evening van-pedestrian terrorist attacks on the bridge and assaults in the Borough Market restaurant district by three jihadis that immediately followed and collectively killed eight and injured 48. The terrorists were gunned down by police.

The Blue Thunder unit is believed to have been dispatched from its base in Hereford. The helicopters are flown by members of the Army Air Corps and can each carry eight outfitted troops. When deployed, the Dauphins are supported by an Army Boeing AH-64 Apache outfitted with advanced camera and other surveillance gear, as well as ground units. It is believed that several Dauphins are assigned to the unit and positioned at at least five locations throughout the UK. The helicopter can be dispatched at a moment's notice on orders from the British Home Secretary. The fenestron-equipped Dauphins were selected for the mission partly for their relatively lower noise signature and compact footprint. The unit is thought to have been established after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 and injured 368.

The unit's Blue Thunder moniker was inspired by the 1983 American movie and 1984 follow-on television show that featured a highly reclad 1973 Aerospatiale Gazelle in a fictionalized account of a metropolitan police department's acquisition of an armed and technologically advanced military-style helicopter to be used to quell urban unrest.