A charity rugby match is to take place in memory of a helicopter pilot who died when his helicopter ditched in the sea.
Lt Rhodri Leyshon, who was based at RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset, died on 4 September 2024 when his Merlin Mk4 helicopter made an emergency landing in water off the Dorset coast.
He had previously played rugby for Cowbridge Rugby Football Club (RFC) and the Welsh University Royal Naval Unit.
Friend and former colleague Isaac Salt said: “He was a deeply passionate rugby player and an exceptional athlete.”
The match will see a team of serving military personnel and friends of Lt Leyshon play against his former club at Cardiff Arms Park stadium. It will raise money for Wales Air Ambulance.
Weather permitting, a flypast by 846 Naval Air Squadron, his former unit, will take place before the match.
Mr Salt said dozens of minibuses of Lt Leyshon’s friends will be travelling from Yeovil to Cardiff for the match.
“The individual support has been the most humbling, the sheer number of people who have dipped their hands in their pockets and donated towards it happening,” he said.
Lt Leyshon joined the Wales University Royal Naval Unit, which trains students, in 2010 and was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 2014.
He undertook flying training, specialising as a commando aviator, and completed a number of overseas deployments, including to the Caribbean, the United States and Norway.
Mr Salt remembered him as a practical joker, who once convinced a player in the rugby match that Wales was in a different time zone during a training exercise there.
“He had him working to an hour behind for the two-week exercise to suit the narrative,” he said.
Col Mark Johnson, commanding officer of Commando Helicopter Force at Yeovilton, said after Lt Leyshon’s death that he “was a consummate professional and a shining light with a bright future”.
“He epitomised our team spirit and his loss leaves a huge hole in all our hearts,” he added.
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