Disaster was just barley averted when small arms fire entered the cockpit of a RAF C130 Hercules evacuating Britons and foreign nationals from Libya.

A round bounced off the pilot’s helmet, yet he was unscathed during Sunday’s rescue of oil workers.

Previously, 50 Britons and 150 foreign nationals arrived in Malta on HMS Cumberland.

David Cameron has urged Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi,just as many others have to date, to “go now”.

The prime minister added by saying the north African country had no future “that includes him”.

Confirmed details came from the BBC’s Frank Gardner, of the narrow escape during the evacuation of oil workers, 20 of whom were British, from the desert.

An insurgent group that was on the ground that fired at the aircraft had mistaken it for a Gaddafi regime plane, Gardner says.

They have since apologized for the incident.

Those who had been rescued described the moment the Hercules was shot at, forcing it to abandon a landing.

One oil worker said that the aircraft took two hits on the right hand side of the fuselage, where they just heard ‘bang bang’ as the rounds actually struck.

Another stated that after failing to land at the two blocked off fields, the Hercules was trying again at a third when the firing started, forcing them to abort.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed that the C130 aircraft appeared to have suffered minor damage, adding that there were no injuries to passengers or crew and the aircraft returned safely to Malta.

Another 150 oil workers, many of them British nationals, were rescued from the desert by two RAF Hercules and flown to the safety of Malta Saturday, where they later caught flights back to the UK  that arrived at Gatwick airport on Sunday and early on Monday.
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