Politics: New move to clear pilots in Chinook crash

THE families of two dead RAF pilots yesterday presented new evidence to the Ministry of Defence to clear them of the "slur" that they were to blame for the Chinook helicopter crash in which 25 top security officers died.

But the Armed Forces Minister, John Reid, said last night that the evidence appeared to be "recycling old theories" although the MoD would review their claims.

His response disappointed an all-party group of MPs which had backed the families in calling for a review to clear the two pilots, Flt Lt Jonathan Tapper and Flt Lt Rick Cook.

They were found guilty of "gross negligence" by an RAF tribunal.

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on defence, urged George Robertson, the Secretary of State for Defence, to open a fresh inquiry. "I remain convinced that there has been a miscarriage of justice here," he said.

The families believe the navigational computer software may have been to blame for the helicopter crashing into a hillside in thick fog on the Mull of Kintyre killing all 29 on board. The board of inquiry found pilot error was to blame.

A former RAF test pilot Sqn Ldr Robert Burke and Malcolm Perks, an expert in aviation computers, told the MoD that a more likely explanation for the accident included the possibility of a control "jam" caused by part of the flying controls becoming detached, and an engine "runaway" due to a failure of the aircraft's FADEC computer software.

"These two were first-class pilots, some of the best in the world. To have this slur against their names is quite intolerable," said Flt Lt Tapper's father, Michael Tapper.

Calling for a new official inquiry, he added: "It's bad for morale if pilots think that, whatever they do, if they have a crash there is a chance they will be told they are grossly negligent."

Sqn Ldr Burke said that when he was in the RAF he had been ordered not to discuss the crash with anyone.

"I have come to the conclusion that the verdict of `gross negligence' is totally unfair. It is unjust," he said.

"If you blame the pilots, virtually everything else you can gloss over as a cause of the accident."

Mr Perks described the Chinook's FADEC system as "high risk". He also argued that the simulation used by the board of inquiry to recreate the accident had been "flawed".

The other MPs backing the call for the inquiry to be reopened were senior Labour backbencher Martin O'Neill; James Arbuthnot, a former Conservative defence minister; Robert Key, a former transport minister, and Crispin Blunt a former special adviser at the MoD.

The families' latest call for a fresh inquiry came 24 hours after the Commons Select Committee on Defence found that there was no evidence of "fundamental flaws" in the aircraft's basic design which may have caused the crash.

Dr Reid said yesterday: "The Ministry of Defence has taken no pleasure at all in the findings which the RAF board of inquiry found themselves obliged to reach."