RAF Typhoons are at risk of a mid-air crash with a passenger jet and a "catastrophic" loss of life, military regulators have warned.

 

The failure of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to fit the aircraft with collision warning systems is unsustainable, according to a new report.

So great is the risk that the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and the chief of the air staff have been informed.

Last year an investigation warned the absence of a collision warning system was a major factor in a crash involving two Lossiemouth-based RAF Tornados over the Moray firth in 2012.

Since then ministers have pledged to fit the potentially life saving equipment to Tornados, although moves to do so have hit delays.

However, there are no plans to fit the more advanced Typhoons with the technology.

In a newly published report Air Marshal Garwood, the Director General of the Military Aviation Authority (MAA), warned that Typhoons should be fitted with collision avoidance systems with 'full haste'.

Angus Robertson, the SNP's defence spokesman, whose constituency includes RAF Lossiemouth, where Typhoons are also now based, said the report was "hugely damning" for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

"Twenty years after it was proven and recommended that these systems would save lives they remain uninstalled. It is clear that the MoD with its cavalier approach to safety has learned no lessons as it has not even made the systems mandatory on new fast jets it acquires, while it drags its feet installing them on the ones they use already.

"The Director General is right to say that there is unnecessary risk - which includes an unthinkable collision with a civilian airliner - and the MoD have known this for decades and have done far too little."

Earlier this month investigators concluded that an RAF Typhoon was allowed to fly too close to a small private plane by air traffic control.

The military aircraft had been heading for RAF Marham in Norfolk last July when it met a Cessna C172 and dived to avoid it.

The report found that Marham air traffic control had been unable to detect the Cessna with the radar system it was using that day.

Air Marshal Garwood's report warns that in the worst case "which is judged improbable but catastrophic" a Typhoon colliding with a commercial aircraft would result in "the likely substantial" loss of life.

It says that the risk of a mid-air crash involving a Typhoon is "far higher" than other aircraft with are being fitted with collision warning systems.

He adds that if the MoD does not fit the technology to Typhoons "the risk (will need to be) held at the highest levels".

An MOD spokesman said:"The Department has welcomed the report, and is acting upon its comments and recommendations. Air safety is at the core of all our aviation activity and we take very seriously our obligations to our people and the wider community to ensure that our activities are both as safe as reasonably practicable and comply with relevant policy and legislation."