Chinook tragedy: new evidence emerges
Updated on 06 December 2007
It was the worst peacetime accident in the RAF's history: and tonight the government has agreed to examine new evidence into the cause of a Chinook helicopter crash 13 years ago.
It was the worst peacetime accident in the RAFs history: and tonight the government has agreed to examine new evidence into the cause of the Chinook helicopter crash, 13 years ago. The Ministry of Defence will look at a new technical report - obtained by a group campaigning to clear the names of the two pilots involved.
The helicopter crashed into the Mull of Kintyre, and claimed the lives of all 29 people on board, including 25 senior figures involved in Northern Ireland security. The pilots, Flight Lieutenant Tapper and Flight Lieutenant Cookhave, were found guilty of gross negligence for flying too fast and too low in thick fog. Their families have been campaigning to review the evidence ever since.
The Chinook crashed in June 1994 on the Mull of Kintyre, killing all 29 occupants. An RAF inquiry in 1995 could not determine the cause of the crash. But later that year, a review of the evidence by two senior RAF figures found Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook guilty of gross negligence. In 1996 a fatal accident inquiry said the cause of the crash remained open to question, and
February 2002 a House of Lords Inquiry cleared the two pilots.
