Chinook crash: Claims of possible ‘cover-up’ as new details emerge

Former defence secretary Sir Liam Fox tells Channel 4 News his official 2011 crash review team may have been misled by the MoD and vital information “withheld”.

Former defence secretary Sir Liam Fox has called on the Prime Minister to order a fresh review into the Chinook air disaster in Scotland.

Tomorrow it will be 32 years to the day since the worst loss of life in the entire peacetime history of the RAF.

An experienced air crew of four and 25 of the cream of British army and police intelligence in Northern Ireland were wiped out when their helicopter crashed, en route from near Belfast to a base outside Inverness.

As we reported in 2010, the RAF was warned just hours before this flight, by its own safety engineers at their Boscombe Down base in Dorset, that the helicopters were dangerously unsafe because of computer software faults.

The engineers begged the MoD to ground the entire flight immediately - but the flight went ahead.

Anniversary intervention

Two of the most senior RAF commanders then over-rode their own internal inquiry to blame the pilots for the crash - but after 16 years of campaigning and an investigation by Channel 4 News, Sir Liam Fox, pictured below on the left, exonerated the dead pilots.

Today he spoke exclusively to us. He now says he and his official 2011 Chinook crash review team may have been misled by the MoD.

The families of those who died in the crash have hailed the “game changing” anniversary intervention from Sir Liam and have called for “root and branch reform” of the MoD.

Sir Liam commissioned the Mull of Kintyre Review in 2010 following years of criticism over the decision to blame pilots flight lieutenants Rick Cook and Jonathan Tapper for the crash.

That review, led by former Scottish judge Lord Philip, alongside Privy Counsellors Lord Forsyth, Baroness Liddell and Lord Bruce, concluded that the finding of gross negligence against the pilots was no longer sustainable and the verdict was overturned.

‘Vital information may have been withheld’

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Sir Liam Fox writes: “On the evidence that was available we believed that the exact cause of the crash could not be established and that the decisions within the MoD, and the RAF in particular, were correct and that no cover up had taken place.

“As more evidence has come to light, we have had increasing concerns that these statements may not be true and that vital information may have been withheld from ministers and parliament”, and that information provided by the MoD “on the airworthiness of the aircraft was not correct”.

“Key warnings about airworthiness failures - dating back to 1988 - were withheld from families and all subsequent investigations. The MoD failed to disclose that it was in legal dispute with the engine manufacturer over FADEC software quality at the time. An unverified and unpredictable safety-critical system was accepted off-contract and put into service.”

The MoD says it is working with the families who want to get to the bottom of what happened. But that task is not helped by official papers on what happened being locked up and kept secret for 100 years.

The families question that decision, along with so many more taken by the military authorities since that fateful flight.

An MOD spokesperson said: “Our thoughts and sympathies remain with the families, friends, and colleagues of all those who died in the Mull of Kintyre crash.

“The Chinook Justice Campaign submitted a formal claim for Judicial Review in September 2025, and the MOD is focused on responding to that claim and to the allegations it contains. The MOD continues to engage with the CJC throughout this process but we will not be offering comment on issues that are being considered as part of that independent process.”