RAF top brass 'ignored own inquiry' into Chinook crash

The brother of one of the pilots accused of gross negligence after a Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre, killing 25 senior intelligence experts, has said he has no doubt senior officers overruled their own inquiry into the accident.

A report is expected to say later this week that the pilots - Flight Lieutenants Richard Cook and Jonathan Tapper - should not have been blamed. They were accused of being at fault in an official Ministry of Defence report into the cause of the crash for flying too fast and too low on the Mull of Kintyre in June 1994.

The latest investigation, by retired Judge Lord Philip, is understood to say they should not have been accused of gross negligence.

Chris Cook told Channel 4 News it was "beyond any doubt whatsoever" that two air marshals - Sir William Wratten and Sir John Day - overruled their own RAF inquiry into the crash.

He said: "It's been 16 years since the Board of Inquiry report and the air marshals' findings, and from the outset we saw quite a shocking finding. But what we couldn't find was any evidence to support it, and that's why we had to correct what we think has been an injustice."

It is believed the latest report has been submitted to Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who is expected to deliver its findings to parliament this week.

Campaigners have sought to have the duo cleared of wrongdoing for the past two decades, but successive ministers have refused to overturn the original decision.

In April, new documents warning of "serious incidents" which "brought into question" RAF helicopters were discovered. It is believed these documents had not been considered in the original report, nor in a subsequent Fatal Accident Inquiry.

The incident remains the RAF's worst peacetime accident.