Shocked army staff caught two drunk soldiers having sex in the cockpit of an Apache helicopter.

The personnel employee discovered the pair in the cockpit during routine maintenance aboard the H-64 gunship, which belonged to the Army Air Corps.

Ground crew had finished a night time servicing the chopper when they noticed something unusual. As the maintenance staff member approached the helicopter, which is armed with a 30mm cannon and Hellfire missiles, they realised the rotors on the helicopter were swaying up and down and there were strange noises coming from inside.

s they got closer, the crew realised to their horror that two people were crammed into the rear cockpit of the two-seater aircraft having sex, reports the Mirror.

The shocked mechanics found the man and woman, who were believed to have been drunk, half naked inside the aircraft. A report to the Military Aviation Authority said: “It became apparent that the rear ­cockpit was occupied by two people engaged in sexual intercourse. Both were naked from the waist down — the male in uniform, the female in civilian attire. They were ordered to exit the cockpit and get dressed. Both parties were serving soldiers. Both showed symptoms of intoxication.”

The chopper the pair were caught in was part of the Army Air Corps’ 653 Squadron but the two soldiers are thought to have been from a different unit, the Royal Artillery.