John McTernan: Pilots, not machines, caused the Chinook disaster

Simple human error was to blame for the Mull of Kintyre crash, and no amount of inquiries can change that

THE Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1995 was an appalling tragedy. The friends and families of the 25 passengers and four crew who died have now lived for 16 years with a grief that will never pass. An event of this magnitude has many dimensions. A generation of senior security services staff in Northern Ireland was wiped out. A core capability of the Royal Air Force - to safely transport personnel from one location to another - was challenged. The efficacy and the very safety of the workhorse helicopter, the Chinook, was thrown into doubt. What had happened? And why?

These are the questions that have hung around since the crash. The RAF has a process for establishing the answers, as, tragically, it has had to over the years. The RAF had a Board of Inquiry (BOI) to investigate the crash. This consisted of a wing commander and two squadron leaders - one with experience of helicopters, the other an engineer. This BOI was itself reviewed by two air marshals whose conclusion was that the pilots of the helicopter showed negligence in the way they were piloting the aircraft - simply put, they flew too low and too fast.

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This finding was a relief and a problem at the same time. A relief in that the families of the passengers knew what had happened. In one sense it was no help, their relatives were still dead, but in another it offered closure - some of the wilder conspiracy theories of IRA involvement were ruled out. Yet, it left a nagging - and understandable - difficulty: the families of the two pilots resisted the conclusion that their relatives were responsible for the tragedy.

This has been a running sore ever since. A campaign has been run to re-open the BOI. As required under Scots law, a year after the accident (and after the BOI) a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) was held, and the sheriff's conclusion was that, "(as for] what was the cause of the accident. For my part I can only say that I do not know".

This was the beginning of a questioning of the judgement of the RAF, and in particular its two air vice-marshals, that prompted a House of Lords committee report, an inquiry by the Defence Select Committee report and a Public Accounts Committee investigation. Each, in its own way, threw doubt on the RAF's findings. Or, to be accurate, they tested the air marshals' conclusions against the testing criteria of "absolutely no doubt whatsoever" - and convinced themselves they had found doubts.

The Ministry of Defence has reviewed the case, after a long campaign. Labour Defence Secretary Des Browne (disclosure: I worked for him) announced it, and his successor John Hutton delivered the verdict that "no new evidence" had been presented to the MoD and the verdict would stand.Oppositions often decide that governments are wrong in principle, and concede to campaigners that they can have the inquiry they have long wanted. So it has proved with the campaigners on the Mull of Kintyre crash. Dr Liam Fox promised another review if elected, and last year he appointed the experienced and respected Scottish judge, Lord Philip, to oversee it. Little had been heard of this until the weekend when it was vigorously briefed that Lord Philip would clear the pilots of gross negligence. This briefing is expected to be followed up by a Commons statement by Dr Fox, today or tomorrow.

While the Defence Secretary's statement will be interesting, it cannot be allowed to get away from the core fact. The helicopter crashed. Twenty-nine people died. And someone was responsible. To "clear" the pilots in one sense merely satisfies a handful of campaigners while snatching certainty and closure from the relatives of 27 other people.

Let's go back to the core of the original finding. Air Vice-Marshal JR Day said, "when the aircraft crashed, it was flying at high speed, well below Safety Altitude in cloud… in direct contravention of the rules". In fact, he concluded that both pilots were "negligent to a gross degree", commenting that it was "incomprehensible why two trusted, experienced and skilled pilots should… have flown a serviceable aircraft into cloud-covered high ground". And that remains the unassailable core for the MoD. The pilots flew too fast and too low in weather that was so cloudy that they did not see the Mull of Kintyre until it was so close they could not avoid it. When the cloud parted, the pilots saw the cliffs, pulled back hard and tried to rise - as the Boeing engineers reported - but it was too late, they had insufficient time to rise high enough above the Mull. This, not the elaborate theories involving equipment failure, the unreliability of the Chinook, and so on, makes sense. There was human error. The pilots set a course they should have known led them straight into the Mull of Kintyre. In clear skies they'd have seen it miles off and risen high enough far away. Had they been cautious in cloud cover, they would have gone more slowly, or risen far higher in flight - ideally both. Any combination of "safety first" would have not only made sense, it would have saved lives. And yet, the logical, the most straightforward explanation of the crash is queried and rejected.

Occam's razor - the brilliant medieval insight, that the theory that fits the facts most simply and elegantly is the correct one - fits here. All the alternatives to the original RAF inquiry are baroque and complex. There is an interesting and wholly understandable process going on here. The pressure for an inquiry - and the expectation that the condemned will be cleared - arises from a refusal to accept that anyone was at fault. Yet logically everyone knows that cannot be the case. An aircraft crashed. Twenty-nine people died.Something serious happened and there was a cause. I have a lot of sympathy with those who say that schools are bedevilled by an "all shall have prizes mentality" - there can be no losers. But surely, by the same token, the opening and re-opening of the Chinook inquiry rests on an equally false proposition: "none shall have blame."