Leading RAF officers at the time of a Chinook crash in Scotland in
1994 mounted a campaign in Parliament this week to show that pilot
negligence and not a computer or other technical problems caused
the accident.
It comes as a House of Lords Select Committee prepares to report by
31 January on whether two air marshals, Sir William Wratten and Sir
John Day, were justified in finding gross negligence against the
two pilots of Chinook ZD576 which crashed on the Mull of Kintyre
killing 29 people.
Although the committee has not completed its report, Lord Craig,
former Chief of the Defence Staff and Marshal of the RAF, invited
peers and MPs to a briefing in Parliament this week by
Wratten.
Craig - who had opposed the setting up of the Lords committee -
also invited peers and MPs to consider a briefing paper by Sir
Richard Johns and Sir Michael Graydon, now retired from the RAF,
who were chiefs of air staff at the time of the accident. Johns and
Graydon's paper said that theories of a possible malfunction - for
instance that an engine surge caused by a problem with the
Chinook's Fadec (full authority digital engine control) software
system - were fanciful.
"The select committee has spent much of its time in its hearings
examining possible technical failings - these technical hypotheses,
as our letter makes clear, are irrelevant."
They add, "We are in no doubt that both the pilots were grossly
negligent".
The committee has heard evidence about how technical problems left
no obvious trace in the wreckage, possibly involving the Chinook's
software-based Fadec fuel control system, could have been a factor
in the accident.
A Fadec design flaw caused the near destruction of a Chinook in
1989 and an RAF board of inquiry into the crash of ZD576 was told
that, at around the time of the accident, Chinook pilots were
confronted with "unforeseen malfunctions of a flight-critical
nature which have mainly been associated with the engine control
system, Fadec".
Earlier this month, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch told the
Lords committee that evidence recovered from the wreckage was
"remarkably thin" and did not prove or disprove the normal
operation of the Chinook's engines on the approach to the Mull.
By lobbying peers and MPs this week, Johns and Graydon have drawn
criticism that they are attempting to pre-empting the findings of
the committee.
The tone of their letter suggests that the RAF hierarchy is
unlikely to accept the committee's report if it recommends
overturning the decision to find the pilots grossly negligent.
Some observers of the controversy say the stage could be set,
therefore, for a confrontation between Parliament and the RAF.