Police air service denies penis flight path was deliberate

The service that provides air support to the police has denied deliberately drawing a penis-like shape in the sky via a helicopter's flight path.

Gordon Bird, 53, who lives in Ancells Farm, in Fleet, Hampshire, said his two-year-old daughter was woken up at about 23:00 GMT on Monday by a helicopter flying overhead in multiple circles for at least 15 minutes.

He said he was "shocked" after checking its tracking data online and discovering the phallic shape.

But the National Police Air Service (NPAS) told the BBC that the crew was "orbiting the locations they were directed to as part of the search for a vehicle that had failed to stop for police".

According to tracking data, the police helicopter made the main part of the outline above Blackbushe Airport before circling over Ancells Farm, and then heading back to its base at Redhill.

"I happened to have my computer on, I hadn't gone to bed, so I just looked it up on the tracking," Bird explained.

"The actual buzzing around our estate lasted for 15 or 20 minutes, the actual drawing of the phallus... took about half an hour, and the overall flight, as per flight radar type websites, show it as being an hour."

Bird said when helicopters fly over his house it "vibrates" and the windows "rattle".

"I'm not angry, I am upset at the waste of resources," he said.

NPAS provides aerial support to police forces across England and Wales.

In an email to Bird, it said it understood the "frustration" of having his young daughter "disrupted" by the airborne activity and it was "unfortunate that the flight path shown on public tracking apps resembles a particular shape".

The service told the BBC that on the night in question, its crew had been carrying out checks of "specific roads, junctions and areas identified by officers on the ground".

It said NPAS flights "do not follow defined or predetermined flight plans as they, by their very nature, are dynamic and respond to ever changing, and unpredictable, circumstances on the ground".

"The flight was conducted for a legitimate policing purpose, in support of Thames Valley Police," it added.