Three feared dead in Scottish RAF Tornado crash The man who died was an officer from 15 (Reserve) Squadron, based at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray. A fourth crew member is in a serious but stable condition in hospital. There is "no expectation" of recovering the missing people alive, Group Captain Ian Gale, the station commander at the RAF base, said. The name of the officer who died has not yet been released. Mr Gale said today's decision not to resume the search and rescue operation for the missing crew was due to "extremely poor" weather conditions in the area. The recovery operation will resume as soon as possible. Mr Gale said the incident will be subject to a full investigation. He said in a statement: "Following the incident involving two of our Tornado GR4 aircraft in the Moray Firth yesterday, it is with great sadness that I must confirm the death of one of the crew members, an officer from 15 (Reserve) Squadron, based here at RAF Lossiemouth. A second crew member remains under medical care, where he is in a serious but stable condition. Two additional personnel remain unaccounted for. Due to extremely poor weather conditions in the area, the RAF and Her Majesty's Coastguard have made a joint decision not to resume search and rescue operations. The operation will be resumed as a recovery operation as soon as possible, but we must be realistic: given the length of time that has elapsed since the accident, there is no expectation of recovering missing personnel alive. The Royal Air Force is in contact with the next of kin of all those involved. As I am sure you will understand, they have asked for a period of time to take in the news and inform extended family members before further details are released. The Royal Air Force intend to respect this and I would ask the media to do likewise. Clearly, this incident will be subject to full investigation, and a service inquiry will be led by the Military Aviation Authority. It is important that we establish the facts of what happened and it is vital that the investigation is allowed to take its course. But the priority now is to ensure that the families of those involved receive the support they need at this most difficult of times. The RAF ensign at the entrance to the Lossiemouth base was lowered to half-mast this afternoon. There have been no flights in and out of the base today. Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to the personnel involved in the crash. He said: "Our thoughts should be with the friends, family and colleagues of those involved. The circumstances still remain uncertain but it's clearly a very serious incident. The investigation is ongoing and more details will be released by the RAF in due course. The Tornado GR4s came down in the Moray Firth yesterday afternoon. Crew from the Buckie boat reported that two people were taken from the sea by helicopter and flown to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. The search for the remaining people was stood down last night as bad weather hampered the rescue effort. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency later said the search-and-rescue element of the response has been "terminated" and the mission moved into a recovery phase. A spokesman said they were continuing to offer assistance to the Ministry of Defence. Richard Lochhead, the MSP for Moray, said the whole community was in shock and the crash was a tragedy. He said: "Given that thousands of people in the area work at the base, everyone has a connection with it and everyone will be thinking about the families of crews who have been involved in this incident and their friends and colleagues that work at RAF Lossiemouth. Clearly, when an incident like this happens, people are very shocked and begin to ask questions. But the pilots are training in very extreme circumstances, it's a very high-risk job flying fast jets and training for conflict. This is a very serious incident and people will ask questions, that's only natural, but now's not the time to speculate on the cause of this incident. There will be an investigation, of course, and we will have to wait for that. People who have questions should ask them and they should be answered. When a tragedy like this happens on such a huge scale it still causes a huge shock and people are now thinking of the crews and their friends and families at this difficult time. In July 2009, an RAF pilot and navigator were killed when their Tornado jet crash into a hillside in Argyll.