Soon after this photo was taken she joined sixteen ships of the 1st Flotilla in the annual Springtrain exercise off North Africa.
On the 1st of April 1982 she was one of seven of the sixteen ships from this exercise, the others being HMS Antrim,Sheffield,Coventry,Arrow,Glasgow,and Brilliant, to head south for the Falklands,all seven of these ships were either sunk or damaged during the conflict. They joined RFA Fort Austin and nuclear submarines Spartan,Conqueror and Splendid which were already heading south.
On the 12th of June she was on the gun line off Port Stanley with Avenger when an exocet missile was fired at her by an improvised land based launcher , she made a high speed turn to starboard, the list caused by this caused the missile which hit her port side, to deflect upwards into the hanger where the Wessex Helicopter blew up and sadly the explosion killed many in her Galley. Thirteen crew were killed, but the fires were out within three hours. Avenger had been lucky not to be hit earlier on the night of 27/28th May, when the exocet fired at her, flew too high and went over the ship.