Effectively the responsibility for allowing so many indispensible intelligence assets to fly together in a single battlefield helicopter, the integrity of which had already been called into serious question, lies with the Air Marshalls.. .The RAF board of inquiry which investigated the accident stated flatly that there were no grounds for attaching blame to the pilots. The Air Marshalls overruled that finding and substituted their own verdict, of gross negligence. This effectively shifted the blame from themselves onto the deaed men.. .The board of inquiry report should have remained secret, as all such previous reports had. Unfortunately for the Air Marshalls, the then Prime Minister, John Major, was on an 'open government' kick and made the inquiry report available to the families of the dead. Imagine their consternation when they discovered that the inquiry had not blamed the pilots, as the air marshalls had led them to believe, but had in fact explicitly exonerated them.. .It should not be forgotten that when they were overruling the inquiry and substituting their own verdict, the Air Marshalls believed they would never be found out.
vfrpilotpb: This aircraft was not cleared to fly in temperatures of less than 2 degrees centigrade. Flying at minimum safe altitude (track took the aircraft close to Ben Nevis) would have taken it into the icing range, which was expressedly forbidden. The RAF Board of Inquiry ruled that the pilots' decision to fly VFR below cloud was 'perfectly proper under the circumstances.' The Air Marshalls claim it was gross negligence.