MoD 'dishonest' to call Chinook crash an accident, say families
RAF Chinook ZD576 was carrying 25 British intelligence personnel from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to a conference at Fort George near Inverness when it crashed in foggy weather on June 2 1994 on the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland.
All 25 passengers – made up of personnel from MI5, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army – were killed, along with the helicopter's four crew members.
The families of those who died said earlier this month that they were beginning legal action against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for not ordering a public inquiry.
They want a High Court judge to be able to review information which they say was not included in previous investigations, and which they believe will shed new light on the airworthiness of the helicopter.
The families, who have coalesced into the Chinook Justice Campaign, said failing to order a public inquiry is a breach of the UK Government's human rights obligations.
An MoD spokesperson said: 'The Mull of Kintyre crash was a tragic accident, and our thoughts and sympathies remain with the families, friends and colleagues of all those who died.
'We have received a pre-action protocol letter from the Chinook Justice Campaign and are considering our response. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to comment further.'
Solicitor Mark Stephens, who is representing the families, said: 'The statements issued by the Ministry of Defence in recent days are so blatantly at odds with the facts as we now know them that they have caused immense upset to the families and cast a further cruel and disgraceful shadow on this ongoing travesty of justice.
'We know that the RAF helicopter carrying the 29 service personnel who were killed, serving their country, had been grounded because of fatal flaws in the software on board.
'For the MoD to claim that this was a 'tragic accident' flies in the face of the facts and is blatantly and disgracefully at odds with the truth.
'It is nothing short of dishonest, deceitful and disingenuous and we demand a retraction.'
The families have also called for the release of documents that were sealed at the time of the crash for 100 years, something revealed in a BBC documentary last year.
The MoD has said that records held in the National Archives contain personal information and early release of those documents would breach their data protection rights.
Mr Stephens said: 'For the Government to believe that data protection laws were designed to protect someone who is living – and who may have made a dreadful decision that night – rather than the truth emerging over 29 service personnel who were killed in an unairworthy aircraft, is a total abomination.
'This decision must be overturned, these files must be seen by a judge, and we will fight this in court if necessary.'
Niven Phoenix, a commercial pilot whose father Ian was one of the senior RUC officers killed in the crash, said: 'This was about as far from a tragic accident as you could get. Locking the files away until we are all dead proves there is a cover-up about something.
'The MoD's statement that these files have been sealed to protect third party interests is yet another disingenuous, distasteful and outright dishonest assertion designed to hide the truth using data protection laws which only came into force in the UK long after the crash.
'The Government would prefer for all the children of the Chinook victims to die like their parents rather than provide access, answers and take accountability for past mistakes. This is not the duty of candour promised by Keir Starmer in his election manifesto.'
Following the crash, the Chinook's pilots, Flight Lieutenants Richard Cook and Jonathan Tapper, were accused of gross negligence, but this verdict was overturned by the UK Government 17 years later, following a campaign by the families.
A subsequent review by Lord Philip set out 'numerous concerns' raised by those who worked on the Chinooks, with the MoD's testing centre at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire declaring the Chinook Mk2 helicopters 'unairworthy' prior to the crash.
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