John Peters (RAF officer)

Squadron Leader John Peters (born 1961) is a former pilot of the British Royal Air Force.

Early life
He attended the independent Churcher's College in east Hampshire, leaving in 1980.

By the age of 17, he had his pilot's licence. He attended the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (commonly known as UMIST, now part of the University of Manchester since 2004), gaining a BSc in Building Technology in 1983. He was an RAF university cadet, joining the RAF in 1980, training at RAF Woodvale with the Manchester and Salford University Air Squadron. He later graduated with an MBA from the University of Leicester.

Career
After his RAF training, he was based at RAF Chivenor and RAF Lossiemouth.

He became a staff pilot in 1987 at the Air Navigation School (ANS) of No. 6 Flying Training School at RAF Finningley. In 1988, he moved to XV Squadron at RAF Laarbruch after converting to the Tornado GR1 when a Flight Lieutenant.

Gulf War
On his first mission during Operation Desert Storm when aged 29, an ultra-low level daylight mission on Ar Rumaylah airfield, while acting as number two to Squadron Leader Paul "Pablo" Mason, his Panavia Tornado ZD 791 of XV Squadron was hit at fifty feet by a shoulder-launched SAM SA-14, and he was captured by the military of Iraq. After capture he was shown, bruised and apparently beaten, on television. He received no medal of bravery for the incident, totalling 47 days.

He received around 15,000 letters from well-wishers.

Instructor
Having been at RAF Brüggen, he moved to RAF Cottesmore (then in Leicestershire) in 1993, becoming an instructor on the TTTE. He graduated with an MBA from the University of Leicester Management Centre, with his dissertation being The Challenge of Change in the Royal Air Force.

He became a Squadron Leader in 1997, moving to Turkey, and left the RAF after 18 years.

Publications
On repatriation by the Red Cross, Peters co-authored a book, Tornado Down, with John Nicol his navigator. As of 2009 he works as a motivational speaker, often at many university management schools. He is a practitioner of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). He has also worked as a representative of the Association of MBAs.

Since 1999, he has been a partner of UPH Ltd.

Personal life
He married Helen and has two children. They live in Worcestershire near Bromsgrove. When at Cottesmore, and studying at the University of Leicester, he lived in Rutland.

News items

 * Independent October 2004
 * Independent August 1993