Airbubba
4th Mar 2004, 13:27
MoD under pressure over Norway crash
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is under new pressure to release details of its operations in northern Norway on the day a passenger plane crashed, killing all 15 people on board.
An official parliamentary inquiry in Oslo has declared it intends to visit the UK to obtain detailed answers about RAF flights on 11 March, 1982.
On that date, more than 30 eyewitnesses have reported seeing military planes inside forbidden Cold War airspace in the area of arctic Finnmark, where the plane crashed.
Specifically, Norwegian investigators want to talk to former pilots of British Harrier jets from RAF Number One Squadron.
There has been frenzied speculation in the Norwegian press that one of those Harriers, on unauthorised manoeuvres near the Russian border, collided with the Twin Otter passenger plane and caused it to crash.
In a written answer to the House of Lords, the MoD admitted last year that an RAF aircraft was damaged that day. It said the plane had been "struck by a ricochet during a live-firing exercise".
But Norwegian staff on duty at the only nearby firing range insist no Harriers visited in the hours before the damaged plane landed.
And previously, in 1987, the British military attaché denied the aircraft had been damaged in any way.
Inconsistencies
In response to enquiries from BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents programme, the MoD has admitted there were inconsistencies.
It announced that "an unfortunate error" had been made and reverted to its original version of events that there was "no damage" to the plane in question.
The about-turn is only likely to fuel allegations of a cover-up.
The programme has talked to a key witness, Grete Mortensen, a retired kindergarten teacher, whose house - in the fishing hamlet of Gamvik - overlooks the fjord where the plane went down.
She was with children playing on a hillside nearby when she heard "a terrible sound" which she took to have been a plane crashing into the sea.
"Moments later," she said she saw "a plane, definitely a military plane."
She played a 22-year-old tape-recording of the evidence she gave to investigators at the time, to prove her memory was not deceiving her and to demonstrate that her testimony was ignored.
The first two official investigations into the crash, now widely discredited, ruled out the possibility that there could have been any military planes in the area.
They put the accident down to a freakish mixture of pilot error, extreme turbulence, and damage caused to the tail of the aircraft by a suitcase flying out of the luggage hold.
Substantial damage
Crossing Continents also spoke to the Head of Norwegian Radar Operations, who described witnessing Harrier jets crossing into forbidden airspace in the east, shortly before the crash.
We will be thankful if the British authorities will answer our questions as soon as possible
Gaute Gregusson is leading the Oslo inquiry
And a ground technician on duty at a military airbase - where a Harrier landed shortly afterwards - told the programme he saw for himself substantial damage to its tail and fuselage.
Inger Luther, from Tromso - whose father was killed in the crash - is among those who insist "something must have happened suddenly and hard in the air to make this crash possible".
She said that she wanted honest answers from the British about whether one of their planes could have been involved. She told the programme:
"If you get the feeling that something is hidden from you, it is almost unbearable."
She made an appeal to anyone in the UK with new information to come forward now "to establish the truth forever".
So much new evidence is emerging, and so strong is the sense of anger among witnesses and relatives of the dead that a new inquiry has been set up in Oslo to re-examine the case.
The man in charge, Gaute Gregusson, told the BBC it was his "hope and intention" to visit the UK in the imminent future.
"First and foremost," he said, "we want to talk to the British pilots."
He added; "We will be thankful if the British authorities will answer our questions as soon as possible... They will be under a certain pressure."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3529175.stm
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is under new pressure to release details of its operations in northern Norway on the day a passenger plane crashed, killing all 15 people on board.
An official parliamentary inquiry in Oslo has declared it intends to visit the UK to obtain detailed answers about RAF flights on 11 March, 1982.
On that date, more than 30 eyewitnesses have reported seeing military planes inside forbidden Cold War airspace in the area of arctic Finnmark, where the plane crashed.
Specifically, Norwegian investigators want to talk to former pilots of British Harrier jets from RAF Number One Squadron.
There has been frenzied speculation in the Norwegian press that one of those Harriers, on unauthorised manoeuvres near the Russian border, collided with the Twin Otter passenger plane and caused it to crash.
In a written answer to the House of Lords, the MoD admitted last year that an RAF aircraft was damaged that day. It said the plane had been "struck by a ricochet during a live-firing exercise".
But Norwegian staff on duty at the only nearby firing range insist no Harriers visited in the hours before the damaged plane landed.
And previously, in 1987, the British military attaché denied the aircraft had been damaged in any way.
Inconsistencies
In response to enquiries from BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents programme, the MoD has admitted there were inconsistencies.
It announced that "an unfortunate error" had been made and reverted to its original version of events that there was "no damage" to the plane in question.
The about-turn is only likely to fuel allegations of a cover-up.
The programme has talked to a key witness, Grete Mortensen, a retired kindergarten teacher, whose house - in the fishing hamlet of Gamvik - overlooks the fjord where the plane went down.
She was with children playing on a hillside nearby when she heard "a terrible sound" which she took to have been a plane crashing into the sea.
"Moments later," she said she saw "a plane, definitely a military plane."
She played a 22-year-old tape-recording of the evidence she gave to investigators at the time, to prove her memory was not deceiving her and to demonstrate that her testimony was ignored.
The first two official investigations into the crash, now widely discredited, ruled out the possibility that there could have been any military planes in the area.
They put the accident down to a freakish mixture of pilot error, extreme turbulence, and damage caused to the tail of the aircraft by a suitcase flying out of the luggage hold.
Substantial damage
Crossing Continents also spoke to the Head of Norwegian Radar Operations, who described witnessing Harrier jets crossing into forbidden airspace in the east, shortly before the crash.
We will be thankful if the British authorities will answer our questions as soon as possible
Gaute Gregusson is leading the Oslo inquiry
And a ground technician on duty at a military airbase - where a Harrier landed shortly afterwards - told the programme he saw for himself substantial damage to its tail and fuselage.
Inger Luther, from Tromso - whose father was killed in the crash - is among those who insist "something must have happened suddenly and hard in the air to make this crash possible".
She said that she wanted honest answers from the British about whether one of their planes could have been involved. She told the programme:
"If you get the feeling that something is hidden from you, it is almost unbearable."
She made an appeal to anyone in the UK with new information to come forward now "to establish the truth forever".
So much new evidence is emerging, and so strong is the sense of anger among witnesses and relatives of the dead that a new inquiry has been set up in Oslo to re-examine the case.
The man in charge, Gaute Gregusson, told the BBC it was his "hope and intention" to visit the UK in the imminent future.
"First and foremost," he said, "we want to talk to the British pilots."
He added; "We will be thankful if the British authorities will answer our questions as soon as possible... They will be under a certain pressure."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3529175.stm