Browne to probe 1994 copter crash report
Updated on 06 December 2007
Defence Secretary Des Browne has agreed to consider a new report into the 1994 crash of an RAF Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre.
A spokesman said that Mr Browne would also meet the Labour peer Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, a member of the Mull of Kintyre group, to consider the report it has drawn up.
Lord O'Neill said that the meeting with Mr Browne would be held on January 15.
All 29 people on board the helicopter, including 25 senior figures involved in Northern Ireland security, died when the helicopter crashed into the island in bad weather.
The Ministry of Defence has always insisted that the cause of the crash was pilot error - a finding never accepted by the families of the crew.
An MoD spokesman said: "The Secretary of Defence has agreed to meet Lord O'Neill to receive the new report that the Mull of Kintyre group has compiled into the tragic loss of Chinook XD576 and to consider its contents."
The spokesman made clear that Mr Browne had not agreed to a full review of the case.
Lord O'Neill said that the report that the group had drawn up was based on new information which they had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
He said: "We now have, we think, a number of points relating to the airworthiness of the helicopter which we think haven't been considered by the MoD.
"We think that the case we are putting forward now is of a different order to the one we have put in the past. We are fairly confident that we have the kind of case that will be hard to refute."
He added that they would also be questioning whether all the legal procedures adopted by the MoD over the years had been "appropriate".
The Mull of Kintyre group includes the parents of the two pilots - Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook - as well as senior former service figures who have never accepted the official findings.
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