Chinook crash report 'clears pilots of blame'
Independent report expected to say pilots should not have been blamed for crash that killed 29 on Scottish hillside in 1994
The wreckage of the Chinook on the Mull of Kintyre. Photograph: Chris Bacon/PA
The Ministry of Defence has refused to confirm whether a report into a helicopter crash that killed 29 people on a coastal hillside in Scotland will conclude that the two pilots should not have been blamed.
Senior police, army and MI5 officers were among the dead when a Chinook crashed in thick fog on a remote hillside on the Mull of Kintyre in June 1994 during a flight from Belfast to Inverness.
An initial RAF inquiry in 1995 ruled that the pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook, were guilty of "gross negligence" for flying too low and too fast.
But the
BBC reported that an independent inquiry, chaired by the retired judge Lord Philip, is expected to find that the pilots should not have been blamed. It is understood that the report has been passed to the defence secretary, Liam Fox, who is expected to make a statement in parliament next week.
As well as the 1995 RAF report, a fatal accident inquiry was held in 1996. In 2000, the House of Commons defence committee also investigated, as did the Lords in 2001.
In April it emerged that defence chiefs had cast doubt over the safety of Chinook helicopters two years before the crash. An apparently previously undisclosed report from 1992 suggested there were official concerns over the airworthiness of the RAF's fleet of Chinooks. It is understood the report, unearthed from the House of Commons library, was not considered in the four previous inquiries into the crash.
The RAF set up a Chinook airworthiness review team, led by a wing commander engineer, because of concerns about "overall management and maintenance" of the fleet, the papers showed. It said five accidents over six years, and "serious incidents ... brought into question" the fleet's effectiveness.
The report concerned the Mk1 model of the aircraft, but said the issues concerned "both present HC Mk1 and the future HC Mk2 version". It was a Mk2 aircraft that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994.
An MoD spokeswoman said it would be "inappropriate" to comment before Fox made his announcement to parliament.
A statement said: "The defence secretary asked Lord Philip to conduct a review of the evidence considered by the board of inquiry into the Mull of Kintyre Chinook accident. An announcement on the report's findings is due to be made to parliament shortly. Until that time it would be inappropriate to comment."
The SNP's Westminster leader and defence spokesman, Angus Robertson, who has campaigned to exonerate Tapper and Cook, said: "I hope that these reports are accurate. It is time that justice was done, and the defence secretary must finally clear the pilots of any blame.
"In light of Lord Philip's recommendations and given that the initial RAF internal finding, the fatal accident inquiry, and a House of Lords report all concluding that there was no evidence that the pilots were to blame, the position of the MoD is now untenable. It is a disgrace the way the families of Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook have been treated by successive administrations and it's time that the record was officially set straight."
The North East Fife MP, Sir Menzies Campbell, said: "If these leaks are true this represents a victory for common sense. I have always believed that the regulations of the RAF itself could not be satisfied on the information available to the board of inquiry. To eliminate every other possible cause before negligence could be established was an enormous hurdle.
"MPs and peers of all parties together with the families of the two pilots have persisted in trying to persuade the Ministry of Defence and the RAF to change their minds. This independent report is surely justification now for that to happen and for this matter at last to be put to bed. The reputations of the two pilots should now be restored."