One of the UK’s most experienced mountain rescue experts has died at the age of 72. David Whalley was a Royal Air Force and mountain rescue veteran who died this week after being diagnosed with terminal liver disease last year.

David ‘Heavy’ Whalley was one of the UK’s most revered mountain rescuers who had taken part in several important rescue efforts. In December 1988 he was the senior team leader at the Lockerbie disaster, when Pan Am flight 103 was bombed in a terrorist attack over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.