Scotland on Sunday 3 Feb 02
Lords set to overturn RAF ruling on Chinook
BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR
A HOUSE of Lords inquiry is this week expected to overturn an RAF ruling that the "gross negligence" of Flight Lieutenants Richard Cook and Jonathan Tapper caused the Mull of Kintyre Chinook helicopter disaster.
But even if the five-strong Lords committee backs the RAF’s ruling, ministers will still face renewed demands for a full public inquiry into the 1994 disaster, which wiped out the elite of Northern Ireland’s anti-terrorism experts.
The move would end a long fight for justice waged by the pilots’ relatives, who bitterly accused the RAF of ignoring its own rule that dead air crew cannot be blamed unless there is absolutely no doubt that they were at fault.
Shadow defence secretary James Gray warned last night that Conservatives would join campaigners calling for a wide-ranging investigation if the Lords backed the RAF instead.
"Our strong inclination is that it is worthy of future investigation, whatever the findings reported on Tuesday," said Gray. "We need a much wider investigation than was allowed at the time or since, because we are deeply uneasy about the verdict of pilot error. It would be more likely to have been equipment failure."
Support for a review of the circumstances surrounding the crash has built up amid concerns that the two dead airmen had been "scapegoated" for the accident, in which 25 passengers and four crew died as their helicopter flew in heavy fog into the cliffs of the Mull en route from Belfast.
The government partially relented last summer when it agreed to the formation of the Lords inquiry - but only with the authority to decide whether the negligence verdicts were fair.
Lord Chalfont, chair of the all-party group which led the campaign for a Lords inquiry, said the priority for the pilots’ families was overturning the negligence verdicts. "All we are interested in at this time is getting these pilots cleared and making sure that the MoD accepts the ruling," he said.