At the age of 21, McConaghy was the youngest aircrew personnel to be deployed to Iraq, as well as the only female crew member on the Chinook for four years.

Now working as a motivational speaker, Ms McConaghy speaks candidly about her mental health struggles and shares inspirational stories from her time in the RAF. She is now living in Basingstoke near the airbase she worked at, RAF Odiham — where the Chinooks are based — after spending a total of 17-and-a-half years flying with the RAF’s Chinook fleet.The Mental Health Speakers Agency has been one of the UK’s leading bureaus for emotional wellbeing experts since 2020. We're extremely proud to honour Liz as our Inspirational Woman of the Year 2023 and would like to express our deepest gratitude for her altruism and dedication to uplifting the lives of others. Growing up as a child in the Troubles, I always wanted to seek out other countries, I wanted to see the world,” she said. It had aircrew cadet written on the edge of it and there’s only me and one other person who got that because we were still not substantive sergeants.

S. If you’re on it, take it with care, it puts you in a very bad headspace before it pulls you out…that’s how antidepressants work. Liz saw Camp Bastion grow from a barbed wire fence surrounding an area of tents in the sand to the huge Operating Base it became.Liz also takes audiences on her emotional journey of overcoming adversity and speaks about finding hope in the darkest of times, revealing the valuable tools she used to build a path to a new life. But she also knows the experience almost killed her and wants others in a similar position to know they can get help.

However, she also wants people who read her book to learn from her sobering, life-changing experience. The good thing about the Chinook” Liz explained , “compared to something like the Puma and even the Merlin is that it’s got a lot of redundant space.The unmistakable thud of a dozen rotor blades from the two RAF Chinooks echoed across the desert and poppy fields as the helicopters barrelled into hostile territory. Liz has stories for days not only about war but about falling in love, about pushing yourself beyond your limits, and even simply funny stories from good times.