Exclusive:Calls for fresh inquiry into RAF Chinook disaster receive major boost

Writing in The Scotsman today, Lord Bruce of Bennachie said: "If there has been a cover-up, it must be exposed."

A Chinook helicopter carrying 25 of the UK’s most senior intelligence and security personnel in Northern Ireland and four Special Forces crew crashed in the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland on June 2, 1994.

The families of those killed have now secured a court hearing in their bid for a judicial review into the government’s refusal to order a new inquiry into the crash.

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Former defence secretary Sir Liam Fox, who commissioned a previous review into what happened, has called for another to be carried out because "vital information may have been withheld”, including around the airworthiness of the helicopter.

Sir Liam commissioned the Mull of Kintyre Review in 2010, which found that pilots Flight Lieutenant Rick Cook and Jonathan Tapper were not to blame and quashed an ini­tial gross neg­li­gence find­ing.

Lord Bruce, who sat on the review panel, said it had “rightly cleared” the pilots, but stressed it did not investigate the wider circumstances surrounding the disaster.

He said a focused review could answer the “legitimate questions” that remain.

“I do not believe this requires an open-ended inquiry lasting years and costing millions of pounds,” he said. “Nor do I believe that seeking answers is somehow incompatible with respecting the passage of time.

“The families of those who died have lived with these questions for more than three decades. They are entitled to ask why their loved ones boarded an aircraft whose circumstances continue to be debated.

“Truth and accountability do not have a shelf life.”

Lawyers acting for the families say one of the principal arguments advanced by the government to oppose the judicial review is that the case has been brought too late, and should instead have been advanced in 2011 when the pilots were cleared.

But Lord Bruce, the MP for Gordon from 1983 to 2015, said this argument should be “firmly set aside”.

He said: “If there has been a cover-up, it must be exposed. Telling bereaved families that they are unable to get to the truth because they’ve taken too long, would be piling injustice on top of a travesty of justice.

“History has shown repeatedly that public confidence is strengthened, not weakened, when institutions are prepared to revisit difficult issues. The Hillsborough Law to which this government is committed will help to achieve transparency, where it is currently lacking.

“The review on which I served corrected one injustice. The time has come to consider whether another carefully constructed review might finally answer the questions that still distress the families of 29 victims.

“Thirty-two years is a long time. But it is not too late to seek the truth.”

Baroness Liddell, another member of the 2010 review panel and a former Scottish secretary, has also backed calls for a fresh probe after being “deliberately misled” by officials.

A hearing on July 14 at the High Court in London will consider whether the application for a judicial review should proceed.

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Human rights lawyer Mark Stephens, who represents the families, said: "At the heart of this case is a deeply troubling proposition. The facts were hidden, families were kept apart and they were not told the truth.

“The government's position appears to be that families who were repeatedly misled and denied access to critical information should somehow have realised much earlier that they had grounds to challenge those decisions.

"They are effectively saying these families should have spotted that they were being misled. That they should have spotted a cover-up over the circumstances surrounding the crash. That cannot be right.

"The law exists to provide justice, not to reward concealment or to allow public bodies to avoid scrutiny by relying on the passage of time."

He added: "If the state has failed to act with candour, if information has been withheld and people have been misdirected, it cannot then turn around and say: 'You are too late.' That would be a travesty of justice piled on top of a cover-up."

The families have appealed directly to new Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis, urging him to agree to a fresh inquiry and to set aside any arguments which would time bar the case.

Andy Tobias, son of Lieutenant Colonel John Tobias, who died in the crash, said: "We have spent 32 years trying to understand why our loved ones were allowed to board an aircraft which evidence shows was not fit to fly.

"It is hard to comprehend that after decades of unanswered questions, the response could simply be: 'You should have discovered the truth sooner.'

"We hope the court will recognise that this case is not about delay. It is about whether truth and accountability can ever prevail when information has been hidden for so long."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “Our thoughts and sympathies remain with the families, friends, and colleagues of all those who died in the Mull of Kintyre crash.

“The MoD continues to engage with the Chinook Justice Campaign (CJC) throughout this process. Defence ministers have met with Campaign representatives to listen to their concerns, and the CJC also met with the Ministry of Justice victims minister in March 2026.

“The CJC submitted a formal claim for judicial review in September 2025, and the MoD is focused on responding fully to that claim and to the allegations it contains. We will not be offering comment on issues that are being considered as part of that independent process.”