NEWLY discovered Ministry of Defence documents appear to point to concerns about Chinook military helicopters before the 1994 Mull of Kintyre crash that claimed 29 lives, it was reported last night.
The papers could shed new light on the cause of the crash, which has been the subject of fierce debate for years.
The new documents suggest there were fears about the airworthiness of Chinooks within the RAF as early as 1992, according to the BBC who obtained the reports.
They are thought never to have been seen by any of the original or subsequent reviews into what caused the crash.
One document reportedly queried the Chinook’s overall “management and maintenance”, following five crashes, including some fatal incidents, in six years.
Politicians called for the reports to be shown to the ongoing inquiry assessing the cause of the worst RAF helicopter accident in peacetime.
The Coalition Government ordered the review by Lord Alexander Philip, a retired Scottish judge, which is due to report later this year.
Everyone on board the helicopter died when it crashed on a remote hillside in thick fog on June 2, 1994, en route from RAF Aldergrove, near Belfast, to a conference at Fort George in Inverness-shire. The victims included many of the UK’s top intelligence experts.
The Chinook’s pilots, flight lieutenants Richard Cook, 28, from Church Crookham in Hampshire, and Jonathan Tapper, 30, from Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk, were initially cleared of any blame.
However, a later inquiry, also carried out by the RAF, found the pilots guilty of negligence.
It outraged the men’s families, who believe technical problems caused the helicopter to crash on a remote hillside, and they have campaigned to have it overturned. However, in recent years a succession of different reviews have proved inconclusive about the crash’s cause.
The newly discovered papers found the aircraft had been “dogged by configuration control problems, inadequate publications and system unreliability”.
It went on: “Throughout, the Chinook has been regarded by maintenance staffs as a “Cinderella” of the RAF fleet.”
“Five accidents over the past six years, and serious incidents, such as uncommanded flying control movements, have brought into question the effectiveness of the [aircraft’s] overall management and maintenance.”
Campaigners claim the new documents proved the pilots should never have been blamed for the crash.
There have been calls for the Philip inquiry to analyse the documents before it produces its final report -- due to be presented to Coalition Defence Secretary Liam Fox in the summer.
Angus Robertson, the SNP’s defence spokesman, said the documents pointed to a “shocking state of affairs”.
“They must be examined by Lord Alexander Philip’s ongoing inquiry,” he said.
He added: “Sir Charles Haddon-Cave recently reported into the crash of the RAF Kinloss-based Nimrod in Afghanistan and blamed ‘systemic failings’ within the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and accused it of sacrificing safety to cut costs.
“The MoD really needs to get to grips with the safety issue, restore confidence and ensure that this culture has come to a complete end.”
The Philip review is being conducted in private.
Last night a spokesman for the inquiry would not comment on the development.
Lord Philip, who retired from the bench in 2007, previously served as president of the Lands Tribunal for Scotland for three years up until 1996.
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