Walter
I know that when we met at Paisley and discussed briefly, among other things, your background, there was no doubting your sincerity and intense belief that the Chinook was taken into the hillside through some form of landbased nav. device - similar to claims made about the death of one of Clinton's aides in Bosnia. The MoD was concerned with what you said informally outside the FAI and sought clarification personally from you. They rejected what you had to say. You didn't provide the evidence, just gut instinct and just as John Day and Bill Wratten have done, that is not enough. It wasn't then and it isn't now. I know you use this thread to appeal for more information and hope someone will give it to you. But I worry a little that your commitment to this aspect muddies waters.
Those who perished belonged to a more or less common mindset, based on a belief no IRA ceasefire was imminent in the spring of 1994. Because they were wrong and the IRA declared a ceasefire in August 1994, three months after the accident, the curiosity of timing of both the accident and the ceasefire grew.
Was it government mass murder of 29 people on the Chinook? That's about as hard to prove, and as offensive, as the suggestion the pilots were grossly negligent.
Certainly losing Col. Biles and Brian Fitzsimons and John Deverill hurt the intelligence establishment. Biles, destined for the top, was the head of the Joint Support Group (JSG), which runs agents under the control of the Intelligence Corps inside the Army. Fitzsimons was deputy head of RUC Special Branch and Deverill, deputy head of MI5, (both shortly to retire) provided all intelligence briefings to the Ulster Secretary of State as and when needed.
Two men, both RUC Special Branch, were included on the pax manifest but didn't travel. One has since died of natural causes. The survivor does not talk publicly. But his friends have worried since day one that the crash may have been a Northern Ireland Office "black ops". They offer nothing but a viewpoint but are egged on by a determination so contrary to the certainty of the MoD finding of gross negligence.
Amid officialdom's certainty, a cottage industry of theories grows about what could or could not be possible. That is as damaging to my mind as anything this tragedy has thrown up. So much time and commitment spent on other areas that cannot today be shown because they are either untrue or unsupportable on the available evidence.
This thread and campaign has an intentionally limited purpose - to clear the boys' names.
The evidence does not satisfy the no doubt test and the finding of gross negligence must be set aside. The motive for why gross negligence has been adhered to for so long is secondary.