Captain Mark Hale and Rifleman Daniel Wild of 2nd Battalion The Rifles and Lance Bombardier Matthew Hatton of 40th Regiment Royal Artillery (The Lowland Gunners) were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday 13 August 2009. Lance Bombardier Hatton had been clearing a route to a helicopter landing zone to enable an earlier casualty to be airlifted to medical aid when he was caught by an IED blast and was wounded. Captain Hale and Rifleman Wild then attempted to extract L/Bdr Hatton, but all three men were caught by another IED blast which resulted in their deaths.