Throwing out 1994 Chinook crash legal case a ‘travesty’, serviceman’s son says

The son of one of 29 servicemen who died in the 1994 RAF Chinook helicopter crash has said that a High Court judge’s ruling throwing out a bid to bring a legal claim against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the incident is an “absolute travesty of justice”.

Andy Tobias, whose father, Lieutenant Colonel John Tobias, died in the crash, said that families of those who died could take the case to the European Court of Human Rights following Tuesday’s ruling.

Twenty-five intelligence experts and four special forces crew died when the Chinook HC-2 helicopter crashed into the Mull of Kintyre in south-west Scotland in foggy weather on June 2 1994, while flying from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Fort George near Inverness.

An initial investigation found that gross negligence by the pilots caused the crash, but this was disputed by subsequent reviews and later overturned by the Mull of Kintyre inquiry in 2011.

The Chinook Justice Campaign (CJC), which is made up of more than 55 family members of 25 of the victims, sought to challenge the MoD’s “ongoing failure” to set up an “independent and effective investigation” into the crash.

But Mr Justice Butcher threw out the case on Tuesday as the claim had been brought too late.

Mr Tobias said that the group was “extremely disappointed” by the ruling, which he said left families seeking answers “without an effective domestic remedy”.

He said: “Today’s decision is an absolute travesty of justice, and we are downhearted but not defeated; we will continue our fight for the truth and we never give up.”

He continued: “We do not believe bereaved families should be denied the opportunity to seek justice simply because they were unaware that crucial information had been withheld from them.

“We remain united, dignified and determined to fight for the justice which we and our loved ones deserve.

“Our legal team will now pursue every remaining legal avenue, including taking this case to the European Court of Human Rights.

“But this should never have to be resolved through years of litigation.”

On Tuesday, Sam Jacobs, for the CJC, told the High Court that the group’s legal claim should be allowed to continue as information regarding the Chinook’s airworthiness “raises a more than arguable claim that… those individuals who died in the crash were placed on an aircraft known to be unsafe”.

He continued that there were “profound and stark” concerns as to airworthiness at the time of the incident, and that the aircraft involved needed one of its engines replaced three times in the months before the incident, with issues also reported with its second engine.

He said: “It is plainly arguable that airworthiness caused the crash; indeed, arguable that the HC-2 should not have been flying at all.”

Daniel Beard KC, for the MOD, said in written submissions that the crash has been the subject of “extensive investigations” and that a new probe would serve no “practical purpose”.

He also said that the claim should be thrown out due to being brought too late.

Mr Justice Butcher 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.”

Mark Stephens, the solicitor acting for the CJC, following the decision, said that the MoD had “hidden behind the skirts of a technicality in order to avoid candour and scrutiny”.

He said: “I think most people will realise the suggestion that some of these people, who were 15 in 2011, and many of the women who were single parenting for the first time in their lives, had a priority, which was not starting legal proceedings, even if they had the wherewithal, and I think that is just a mark of the injustice that we’re seeing here today.”

He continued that there was a “pernicious irony” that the group’s case was dismissed on the same day as the Hillsborough Law is set to be approved by Parliament.

The law, which takes its name from the 1989 disaster at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, aims to prevent cover-ups by requiring officials to be transparent during investigations and inquiries into failures by the state.