Chinook pilots were negligent, says minister
The only realistic explanation for the RAF Chinook helicopter disaster on the Mull of Kintyre in June 1994, in which 29 people died, was the finding of pilots’ negligence reached by the reviewing officers of the RAF Board of Inquiry, the House of Lords was told today.
Junior Defence Minister Lord Bach told a crowded and hushed House: ‘‘We have agonised over whether there was some way that we could exonerate the pilots posthumously. But on the basis of all the evidence, I am unable to do so.’’
He went on: ‘‘Apportioning blame for such a terrible accident to men who lost their lives in it was not an easy task for those responsible. Reviewing the circumstances of the case has been one of the hardest duties I have been asked to perform as a Minister.
‘‘Nonetheless, where lives have been lost we must be willing to examine the facts as carefully and dispassionately as possible for the sake of all those involved. This we have done.’’
But Lord Bach promised that should new evidence come to light, the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, would be prepared to look at it again.
The RAF Chinook, on a flight from Aldergrove to Inverness, crashed into a cloud-covered hill on the west side of the Mull of Kintyre just before 6 pm on June 2, 1994.
The pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook, the other two crewmen and the 25 passengers, who were all senior members of the Northern Ireland security services, were killed.
