Squadron Leader Graham Laurie, the RAF veteran who flew Princess Diana’s body back to Britain after her fatal 1997 car crash in Paris, has died at the age of 80.
Laurie served as the personal pilot to the Prince of Wales—now King Charles—for nearly 20 years before his death on August 8.
During his 19 years with the Queen’s Flight at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, from 1981 to 2000, the pilot completed 2,214 flights and logged approximately 13,500 hours in the air.
By the time he retired, Laurie had flown Charles to 767 official engagements.
Yet among the thousands of hours he spent flying, Laurie regarded one mission above all others: bringing Princess Diana “home on her final flight.”
Years later, Laurie described how his son, Graham, woke him at around 2am on August 31, 1997, after returning from a party. He told his father that the Princess of Wales had been seriously injured in a car crash.
Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, later died from injuries sustained when the car crashed inside the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in central Paris.
Understanding the urgency of the situation, Laurie reached RAF Northolt in west London within hours. He flew to collect Diana’s sisters, then stopped in Aberdeen to pick up Prince Charles before continuing on to Paris.
Squadron Leader Graham Laurie, who was the Prince of Wales’s personal pilot for almost 20 years, has died aged 80.
Of the thousands of hours he spent in the air, Laurie considered flying Princess Diana “home on her final flight” his most significant mission.
Laurie estimated that the complete journey would finish by 7pm, a projected arrival time that was quickly passed to the international media, intensifying the pressure surrounding the operation.
Despite that scrutiny, the pilot—renowned for sticking closely to his schedule—landed the BAe 146 carrying Diana’s body at exactly 6.51pm.
According to The Times, Laurie later recalled: “As we slowly moved on to the airport apron, hundreds of press and television cameras followed our every movement.”
He added: “The Queen’s Colour Squadron acted as pallbearers for the short journey to the waiting hearse and did a magnificent job, especially as they had no opportunity to rehearse.”
Within 20 minutes, Laurie said, he was airborne once again, this time flying Charles back to Balmoral.
Laurie said he would always feel honoured to have played a part in an event witnessed by millions across the globe.
“That whole week passed in a daze,” he said. “But looking back, after having flown Princess Diana more than 200 times, I felt honoured to fly her home on her final flight.”
The solemn mission in 1997 came three years after Laurie had faced criticism for allowing the Prince of Wales to take control of a British Aerospace 146—an incident that ended with the future King crashing the aircraft while landing on Islay in the Inner Hebrides.
The £10 million aircraft, nicknamed the “Whisper Jet,” ran into trouble on June 29, 1994, during a five-day visit to Scotland. The incident occurred on the same day as a controversial documentary aired in which Charles admitted to having an affair.
As the jet approached the runway in winds reaching 33mph, it quickly used up the available strip. Charles had to brake sharply, swinging the aircraft around to prevent it from leaving the runway and sliding onto rough ground.
The impact blew three tyres, and the four-engined jet came to a halt at right angles to the runway, 60ft from a 14ft drop into a stream. The nose cone, landing gear and weather radar all suffered damage. Experts estimated the crash caused £1million worth of damage.
Charles later made light of the accident, saying: ‘It wasn’t quite a crash. We went off the end of the runway, unfortunately. It is not something I recommend.’
Laurie was severely criticised in a Ministry of Defence report which claimed he should have grabbed the controls from the Prince.
The pilot later admitted he should have got Charles to pull up, in a 2019 Channel 5 documentary Secrets of the Royal Flight.
Laurie, who was suspended during the 1994 crash inquiry, said: ‘The nose wheel had landed because it was right beneath us, so we were bumping along the runway.
‘But what we didn’t realise was the main wheels were still slightly clear of the ground, so consequently when I took over I still couldn’t stop it going off the end.
‘With hindsight, of course, I should have got him to overshoot and make another approach. But I actually told him to land, so he did exactly what he was told to do.’
The report accused Laurie of negligence and concluded the plane’s navigator was also ‘negligent’ for failing to advise the captain of vital data during the landing.
While he was never formally disciplined, the Royal Air Force did admit at the time his negligence would have ‘career implications’.
Charles grounded himself from flying after the accident, which St James’s Palace said at the time was a ‘personal decision the Prince took on his own’.
Despite being scolded by his superiors, Laurie continued on as Charles’s personal pilot.
Graham Harvey Laurie was born in Mitcham, Surrey, on December 15, 1945. He attended Rutlish Grammar in New Malden, southwest London, where former Prime Minister John Major was two years above him.
They played together on the school cricket team, with Laurie appointed as captain.
In 1964, he joined the RAF and served with the 46 Squadron supporting the Parachute Regiment and Special Forces.
By 1981 he was training pilots to fly the Andover, a twin-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. Soon after, he was selected to join the Queen’s Flight at RAF Benson, a dedicated unit for transporting the Royal Family to their varying engagements.
On his retirement, Laurie was rewarded with a pair of silver cufflinks from the Prince – who he affectionately called ‘the Boss’ – and an appointment to the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1991.
He is survived by Jo, his wife of 58 years, who was a former RAF flight lieutenant and their two children, Jo and Graham.
