Families of victims of the 1994 RAF Chinook disaster are to meet the Prime Minister in a breakthrough for their campaign for a public inquiry.
Sir Keir Starmer said he would look again at relatives’ concerns after they accused his government of a ‘breach of trust’ and treating them with ‘contempt’.
The RAF Mark 2 Chinook crashed on the Mull of Kintyre on June 2, 1994, killing all 29 people on board, including the crew and officers from MI5, the Army, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Relatives of those killed welcomed the Prime Minister’s agreement to meet them, describing it as a ‘significant and long overdue step’.
The commitment came after Tessa Munt, Lib Dem MP for Wells and Mendip Hills, raised the case at Prime Minister’s Questions, pressing for direct engagement with the families who have campaigned for more than three decades for answers.
The Chinook Justice Campaign said the Prime Minister’s response marked the first time in a generation that families have been offered the opportunity to put their case directly to the country’s most senior political leader.
Jenni Balmer-Hornby, whose father Major Anthony Hornby died in the crash, said: ‘We are grateful to Tessa Munt for raising the Chinook case so powerfully in Prime Minister’s Question’s and ensuring the voices of the families were heard directly by the Prime Minister.
The wreckage of a Chinook Helicopter which crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994 killing all 29 on board
Families of victims of the 1994 RAF Chinook disaster are to meet the Prime Minister
‘After more than three decades of unanswered questions, the Prime Minister’s agreement to meet is a significant and welcome step.
‘We hope that meeting takes place as quickly as possible, and marks the beginning of a meaningful process to finally deliver truth, transparency and accountability for the families.’
For years, the Chinook pilots were wrongly blamed for the disaster before being formally cleared in 2011.
In the Commons, Ms Munt said: ‘The Prime Minister knows, because the families have written to him, as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) knows too, that the families are seeking not a public inquiry into the cause of the crash, but to know the reason why their loved ones were placed on board an aircraft which, according to the MoD’s own test pilots and engineers, was described as “positively dangerous”, “unairworthy” and “not to be relied on in any way whatsoever”.
‘Will he agree to meet the families, to rebuild trust and to offer the promised dialogue that the MoD clearly finds so difficult to achieve?’
The Prime Minister said he would ‘make sure that is looked at again in the light of what she has said, and that the families get the relevant meeting’.
Families have continued to campaign for full disclosure of all documents relating to the crash and for a judge-led public inquiry, arguing that key questions about the circumstances of the disaster remain unanswered.
The campaign said it now hopes the Prime Minister’s intervention will break the long-standing impasse, and lead to a clear timetable for the release of information and consideration of a full independent inquiry.
Earlier this month, the Chinook families appealed for the Prime Minister to step in after claiming the MoD had dismissed their fight for answers about the crash.
It came after the MoD issued a statement claiming ‘there has not been evidence presented which would shed significant new light on the cause’.
The relatives claimed this represented a ‘slap in the face’ to them.
Last year former Defence Secretary Sir Liam Fox said he was carrying out an investigation into the Chinook disaster after voicing ‘deep concerns’ about the crash.
He intervened at a time when families of the victims had accused the MoD of ‘gaslighting’ them by refusing to answer unresolved questions.
Relatives of senior British intelligence personnel killed in the helicopter tragedy are also suing the MoD in a bid to end what they describe as three decades of secrecy.
As Defence Secretary back in 2011, Sir Liam published the results of an independent review which recommended that an earlier finding that the pilots were negligent to a gross degree should be ‘set aside’.
The MoD was contacted for comment.