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Families of RAF Chinook crash victims have case dismissed by judge

Michael Sheils McNamee
News imagePA Media Andy Tobias speaking as families from the Chinook Justice Campaign outside the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, ahead of a hearing which will determine whether the families can proceed with a Judicial Review. The families of the victims are calling for a judge-led, public inquiry into the 1994 RAF Chinook helicopter disaster and for all the files - some of which have been sealed for 100 years - to be released. PA Media
Andy Tobias, whose father Lieutenant Colonel John Tobias MBE, said it was a "hugely momentous day"

A legal challenge brought against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) by the relatives of the victims of a 1994 RAF Chinook helicopter crash will not be allowed to proceed, a High Court judge has ruled.

A Chinook helicopter carrying 25 passengers and four crew crashed in the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland on 2 June 1994, killing all of those on board.

In a ruling, Mr Justice Christopher Butcher refused to allow the claim to proceed and found that it had been brought too late.

The legal team for the Chinook Justice Campaign (CJC) group representing many of the victims' families said it would now consider taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Andy Burnham, who is expected to soon become prime minister, was also called upon to intervene.

The CJC, which is made up of more than 55 family members of 25 of the victims, had argued the challenge should be allowed to go ahead over concerns about the airworthiness of the aircraft.

Ahead of the hearing, the MoD was defending the legal bid on the grounds that it had been brought too late.

In his ruling, Butcher agreed with this contention.

"It is right to say at the outset that the crash of the Chinook with the loss of 29 lives was a tragedy of a dimension which it is difficult to describe," he said.

"The pain of bereavement and the agony of loss of the families and friends of those who perished remains, I have no doubt, enduring and bitter."

He said his task was to "recognise legal tests" to the claim, and said there would have been grounds for challenging the MoD on whether it breached its obligations to adequately investigate the incident from 2011.

This was the year the Mull of Kintyre Review was published, a report which exonerated the pilots involved from blame, but did not give a conclusion on the cause of death.

The incident was first investigated by an internal Board of Inquiry in 1995, which concluded that there was an error on the part of the pilots, Flight Lieutenant Rick Cook and Jonathan Tapper.

The judge said that the CJC could have known that there was a breach of the MoD's obligations to adequately investigate the incident from the conclusion of the Mull of Kintyre review.

He continued that "cogent grounds" would be needed to justify the claim being allowed to proceed more than 14 years after the review's conclusion, but said: "No such grounds have been shown."

News imagePA Media File photo dated 04/06/94 of the wreckage of the RAF Chinook helicopter, which crashed on the Mull of Kintyre on June 2, 1994 killing all 29 on board, including 25 top Northern Ireland security experts.PA Media
The families of the victims are challenging the MoD in order to seek a further review

Following the decision, Andy Tobias, whose father was killed in the crash, said the families were "extremely disappointed by the decision, deeply upset at being refused on a technicality but firmly united in continuing to seek the truth".

He said he thought the judge "didn't seem to appreciate how difficult it was for families who didn't know each other and who were kept apart by the MoD following the crash, to uncover the cover up".

Tobias called on the government to carry out a "fresh review without further delay" and for Burnham to "extend the principles of Hillsborough Law to the Chinook families".

The new Hillsborough Law, which is expected to be approved later on Tuesday, is aimed at preventing cover-ups linked to failures of the state.

The legislation would impose a duty on public authorities and officials to tell the truth and proactively co-operate with official investigations and inquiries.

Tobias added that the CJC's legal team would also consider taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Several relatives of those who died attended court, some of whom wept during the hearing.

The helicopter was transporting 25 intelligence experts and four special forces crew from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Fort George near Inverness when it crashed in foggy weather.

Ahead of the verdict, Daniel Beard KC, for the MoD, said in written submissions that the crash has been the subject of "extensive investigations", and that the CJC has not "raised any information even arguably capable of reviving any investigative obligation".

He also said that the Boeing litigation was "not relevant to the crash".

He added that "given the paucity of evidence and the passage of time, it is unlikely that further meaningful investigation is possible, or that further investigation would serve a practical purpose".