Reid says Government should simply overturn Chinook verdict

Alan Reid, Argyll’s MP, has been having a busy week but has come up with a straightforward, no nonsense solution to the problem of the now clearly unsound RAF verdict on the fatal crash in Kintyre in 1994 of its Chinook Mark 2.

For Argyll called upon all elected parliamentarians from Argyll, sitting in Westminster and in Holyrood, to use all channels open to them to have this verdict reversed.

Alan Reid has written to Bob Ainsworth, the current UK Defence Secretary on the matter and has a sharply focused suggestion to make. He says:

‘It never ceases to amaze me how the MoD top brass have managed to convince every Defence Secretary not to overturn this unjust verdict. It is so glaringly obvious that the verdict was unjust.

‘The applicable standard of proof in cases where the pilots died in the crash is ‘absolutely no doubt whatsoever’. Yet there is clearly a great deal of doubt.

‘I’ve written to Bob Ainsworth to try to convince him to overturn the verdict. But, in view of the MoD’s hold over Defence Secretaries, I don’t hold out too much hope of any change of heart from this Government in its dying days.

‘David Cameron is on record five years ago calling on the Government to overturn the verdict. So I hope that, if he wins the next election, he will reject the arguments that the MoD top brass will put to him and will overturn the verdict.

‘There’ve already been four public inquiries which found that the verdict was unjust – the Fatal accident Inquiry at Paisley, two select committee inquiries in the Commons and one in the Lords.

‘So I see no need for a fifth public inquiry, which would put the relatives of the deceased through more stress.

‘With four public inquiries finding that the verdict was unjust, there is enough evidence already in the public domain to enable a Government to overturn this unjust verdict’.

This would certainly be swift, just and utterly defensible given the information now in the public domain.

For those not familiar with the incident in question and with the MoD’s response to it, here is a quick summary.

• An RAF Chinook Mark 2 helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre on 2nd June 1994, with the loss of all 29 on board, 25 of which were the most senior intelligence and police officers then involved in the political situation in Northern Ireland.
• In an internal enquiry held by two senior RAF top brass, the verdicts of two previous investigations were startlingly overturned with no new evidence and against all military precedent. A judgment of gross negligence was made on the two dead pilots of the aircraft, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook.
• Recent revelations have disclosed that the MoD was informed – nine months before the crash, that the FADEC software which had full control of the Chinook Mark 2′s engine was ‘positively dangerous’ and that the pilots’ control of the engine ‘could not be assured’.
• On the day of the accident, another document urged that it was ‘imperative’ that the RAF should ‘cease operations’ with the Chinook Mark 2 at once.
• In what could be construed as criminal negligence, given the fate of the aircraft, both warnings were ignored by the MoD and the RAF insisted on using the Chinook Mark 2 to fly this very high level party on their journey to a security conference in Inverness on that day.
• Moreover, the MoD managed to have these leaked documents inserted amongst those ‘put before’ the enquiry which shockingly found against the pilots. It cannot say whether those conducting the enquiry actually saw the documents in question.
• However, the fact that they were ‘before’ the enquiry and therefore, technically, are not ‘new’ evidence, means that, without extraordinary Government intervention, they cannot now form the basis for calls for a new enquiry to be held to clear the reputations of the pilots who died.

Alan Reid is calling for just that extraordinary Government intervention but calling for it to overturn the verdict directly with no further loss of time in righting this obvious wrong.