Yesterday, it was said the copter shot down, killing 30 US troops.Although the crash was attributed to the insurgents rocket attack (or maybe pilot errors), this verdict seems to fail. At least, according to the article below, there have been many problems with the CH-47F Chinook helicopter itself.
Clear the Chinook two | Richard Norton-Taylor | Comment is free | The Guardian
For 17 years the top brass have been allowed to get away with the self-serving option of blaming the pilots for the RAF's worst peacetime accident – the crash of a Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June 1994. All those on board were killed, including 25 senior members of Northern Ireland's security and intelligence establishment who had been heading for a weekend of brainstorming and golf in Scotland.
Despite mounting evidence challenging the claim by two air marshals that the special forces pilots, Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook, were guilty of "gross negligence", successive defence secretaries refused to reopen the case. This week Liam Fox will tell MPs that a fresh inquiry under a Scottish judge has concluded what pilots, lawyers, engineers, former cabinet ministers, a law lord and independent investigators have been arguing for a very long time: that the pilots should be cleared.
The original RAF board of inquiry and Scottish fatal accident inquiry concluded it was impossible to pinpoint blame. The charge of "gross negligence" was made by air marshals Sir William Wratten and Sir John Day, who stuck to their position in the face of evidence that contradicted it.
Those who questioned the verdict, including this reporter, were subjected to the most hostile comment, with Wratten attacking his critics for "selective quoting", "misinformation" and "irresponsibility". While ministers declined to act, the air marshals, now retired, held firm. Their verdict was final, despite doubts expressed by the earlier inquiries, and evidence of Ministry of Defence cover-ups of what was known about the Chinook's problems.
Many of these involved the helicopter's computer software programme, Fadec, which controlled the aircraft's power, speed and steering. As these problems came to light, defence ministers and officials claimed that any comment from them would "harm the frankness and candour of internal reporting". The MoD did not disclose that it had won $3m in damages from the US manufacturers as a result of the faults.
Yet as early as 1998 a test pilot at the Chinook base at RAF Odiham in Hampshire, Squadron Leader Robert Burke, told the Commons defence committee that pilots had refused to fly the helicopter after numerous incidents showing it was faulty. It emerged that faults had been discovered on the very Chinook that crashed into the Mull of Kintyre.
Burke was one of many experts not called to give evidence at the fatal accident inquiry. He said he was told by his superior officer not to help the accident investigation or discuss it. "He ordered me to keep quiet," Burke said.
Richard Cook told relatives before the accident that he needed to increase his life insurance, so concerned was he about the Chinook's airworthiness. In 2000 the MoD finally admitted that Wratten "did not recall" an incident five years previously when an RAF Chinook was nearly destroyed by a software problem during tests in the US. It admitted that Wratten was unaware of the legal dispute between the MoD and the US makers of the Fadec software, and that while Day was aware of the incident, he was "not aware of the detail". Papers leaked to Computer Weekly magazine show that in a legal action in the US, the MoD acknowledged the Fadec software was "unsafe".
Officials and ministers in the MoD refused to act, and families of the pilots – and of other passengers – continued to suffer, out of a misplaced view that the military hierarchy should not be questioned by outsiders, including ministers and MPs. Ministers might be frightened of pursuing newspaper barons; the Chinook episode suggests they were frightened of upsetting two air marshals too.
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