The first inquiry and its conclusion proved to be highly controversial. The 2011 Parliamentary report found the reviewing officers to have failed to correctly adhere to the standard of proof of "absolutely no doubt" in deciding the question of negligence. Both the incident and the first inquiry have been subject to controversy and dispute, primarily as to whether the crash had been caused by pilot error or by a mechanical failure. A review of the evidence, carried out by two Air Chief Marshals of the Royal Air Force, found the two pilots to have been guilty of gross negligence by flying too fast and too low in thick fog. An immediate suspicion that the helicopter could have been shot down by the Provisional IRA, with their known Strela 2 surface-to-air missile capability, had been quickly ruled out by investigators. In 1995, an RAF board of inquiry that investigated the incident determined that there was no conclusive evidence to determine the cause of the crash. Among these were accusations that wake turbulence from a top-secret hypersonic US aircraft had been responsible for the crash, while another postulated that it was a deliberate assassination of the intelligence operatives on board in connection with the then on-going Northern Ireland peace process. That the crash killed so many British intelligence experts, without any witnesses in the foggy conditions, led to considerable speculation and conspiracy theories being devised on the issue on the potential of a cover-up having been performed. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, one commentator stated that the loss of so many top level Northern Ireland intelligence officers in one stroke was a huge blow to the John Major government, "temporarily confounding" its campaign against the IRA. The points of impact were shrouded in local cloud with visibility reduced to a few metres, which prevented those witnesses who had heard the aircraft from seeing it.
All those on board sustained injuries from which they must have died almost instantaneously. The initial point of impact was 810 feet above mean sea level and about 500 metres east of the lighthouse, but the bulk of the aircraft remained airborne for a further 187 metres horizontally north and 90 feet vertically before coming to rest in pieces. At the time of the accident Air Chief Marshal Sir William Wratten called it "the largest peacetime tragedy the RAF had suffered". The helicopter was carrying 25 British intelligence experts from MI5, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army, from Aldergrove to attend a conference at Fort George (near Inverness) in Scotland. The pilots were Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper, 28, and Richard Cook, 30, both United Kingdom Special Forces pilots. Īround 18:00, Chinook ZD576 flew into a hillside in dense fog. The crew made contact with military air traffic control (ATC) in Scotland at 17:55. Weather en route was forecast to be clear except in the Mull of Kintyre area. This mission was safely accomplished and they returned to RAF Aldergrove (outside Belfast, Northern Ireland) at 15:20. Memorial on Mull of Kintyre to the crash victimsĮarlier on 2 June 1994, the helicopter and crew had carried out a trooping flight, as it was considered to be unsafe for British troops to move around in certain parts of Northern Ireland using surface transport at the time due to the threat posed by Provisional IRA attacks. In 2011, an independent review of the crash cleared the crew of negligence. A Parliamentary inquiry conducted in 2001 found the previous verdict of gross negligence on the part of the crew to be 'unjustified'. This finding proved to be controversial, especially in light of irregularities and technical issues surrounding the then-new Chinook HC.2 variant which were uncovered. This ruling was subsequently overturned by two senior reviewing officers, who stated the pilots were guilty of gross negligence for flying too fast and too low in thick fog.
In 1995, an RAF board of inquiry ruled that it was impossible to establish the exact cause of the accident. The accident is the RAF's worst peacetime disaster. Among the passengers were almost all the United Kingdom's senior Northern Ireland intelligence experts. The crash resulted in the deaths of all twenty-five passengers and four crew on board.
SHROUDED IN SANITY CRASHES ON SIGNING A NEW CONTRACT SERIAL NUMBER
On 2 June 1994, a Chinook helicopter of the Royal Air Force (RAF), serial number ZD576, crashed on the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland, in foggy conditions. RAF Aldergrove (near Belfast, Northern Ireland)
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