MoD knew Chinook software was ‘positively dangerous’ BEFORE 1994 Machrihanish crash

In what ought to be a criminal offence, the MoD knew 9 months before the fatal incident in Argyll, described below, that the software governing the engines of the Chinook Mark 2 helicopter was ‘positively dangerous’ and that full control of the engines by the pilots ‘could not be assured’.

Moreover, another of the papers leaked to the BBC’s Today Programme – and the source of today’s report, was written – and ignored – on the very day of this incident and emphasised the ‘imperative’ that the RAF ‘cease operations’ with the Mark 2 Chinook.

On that day, 2nd June 1994, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook  – one of whom was authoritatively rumoured at the time to have been unwilling to fly the aircraft because of the known unreliability of its engine control software – crashed into the hillside near the Machrihanish Lighthouse on the Mull of Kintyre in Argyll. All 29 on board, including the pilots, lost their lives.

The incident attracted even more publicity because 25 of those on board were top intelligence personnel of the day, involved in the situation in Northern Ireland and on their way to a high-level security conference in Inverness.

An internal RAF enquiry finally judged that the incident was unequivocally due to ‘gross negligence’ on the part of the two pilots. Since then their families and friends – and a cross-party group of MPs at Westminster – have campaigned incessantly for this judgment to be reversed.

A series of Defence Secretaries have been petitioned, unsuccessfully. All have toed the MoD line – from the man ‘in charge’ (joke) at the time, the Conservatives’ Malcolm Rifkind to more recent incumbents like Labour’s Des Browne. He looked as if he might open the issue up but moved on, bequeathing the post to the ambitious self-server, John Hutton – never likely to rock a boat that might carry him to even greater preferment.

The arrival of these documents in the public domain, carrying evidence of the most profound MoD culpability in the matter – before, during and after – might be expected to herald a sense of relief that the righting of this real wrong might at last be close. Such a reaction would be premature.

Now we come to evidence that the MoD, unable to manage its procurement projects without huge cost and time overrruns, can do some pretty neat forward thinking when the performance of its own top brass is under scrutiny.

The MoD contrived, at the time, to make sure that the documents revealed today were ‘made available’ to the original enquiry. This, of course is not saying that they were actually read and considered by that enquiry.

What is does mean, though, is – as the MoD pointed out today – that because of their earlier ‘availability’ such papers cannot now be introduced as the ‘new evidence’ that is the only foundation for a new enquiry.

Look and learn. This is how we do a brass-faced state cover up. Make you proud to be British?

Other reports today have not identified the software said to be ‘positively dangerous’. At the time and since, the engine control software widely considered to be at the heart of the cause of the crash was FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control), installed in the Mark 2 Chinooks.

The specific risks of FADEC are perhaps particularly succinctly summed up in Wikipedia: ‘True full authority digital engine controls have no form of manual override available, placing full authority over the operating parameters of the engine in the hands of the computer. If a total FADEC failure occurs, the engine fails. In the event of a total FADEC failure, pilots have no way of manually controlling the engines for a restart, or to otherwise control the engine’.

Without extraordinary Government action, the documents exposed today by the BBC cannot legally be brought to bear in achieving a posthumous redress to an unconscionable posthumous wrong in the case of the two pilots.

We have asked Argyll & Bute’s Westminster MP, Alan Reid, to pursue the matter with the UK Government, at once and as a matter of the highest priority. He has been active on the matter before and we have no doubt that he will be so again.

We are also asking Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather and Highlands and Islands MSP, Jamie McGrigor, to use whatever internal party mechanisms are at their disposal to activate their party’s MPs at Westminster to campaign without ceasing until this matter is righted. Again, we have no doubt that they will do so.

If this situation is not fully put right by the official start of the General Election campaign, wouldn’t it be fun if Argyll simply did not record a single vote in that election. Could it be done?

We might have a look at contingencies to publicise this suggestion for communal solidarity, as and when the need may arise.

Update 18.00 4th January: Below is the text of our letter to Alan Reid MP, Jim Mather MSP and Jamie McGrigor MSP.

‘We are asking each of you, in different ways, to pursue this case as powerfully as possible and as a matter of urgency.

‘Because this avoidable tragedy happened on our patch, Argyll has become indelibly associated with a genuine wrong of the most cowardly kind – knowingly impugning the reputation of the dead when they were known to be guiltless.

‘We are, in a way, ‘responsible’ for doing what we can to bring about a right conclusion for the benefit of the families of the two Flight Lieutenants who suffered the worst possible double jeopardy.

‘Because of the MoD’s inexcusable conduct, Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook directly lost their lives in being instructed by the RAF to fly an aircraft known to be governed by ‘positively dangerous’ software and, that day, called upon to ‘cease operations’ with it. Then, dead and unable to offer either account or defence, the were doubly harmed by being judged guilty of ‘gross negligence’.

‘We have published an article on this matter today, in which we suggest action that Argyll might take if the matter is not fully put right by extraordinary Government action before the official start of the General Election campaign.

‘If each of you would like to email us a personal statement on your position on te issue and on your planned course action on it, we will publish it immediately.

‘Together you have the capacity, through your different positions and channels, to get this matter straightened out with dispatch and we have absolutely no doubt that you will want to do so.’