IT WAS the worst peacetime accident in the history of the RAF, and how it happened is still in doubt after more than 15 years.

The Mull of Kintyre crash on June 2, 1994, killed all 29 people aboard the Chinook helicopter, including four air crew from RAF Odiham.

The Odiham-based victims were the pilots Flight Lieutenants Richard Cook (pictured right), 30, and Jonathan Tapper (pictured left), 30, Master Air Load-master Graham Forbes, 36, and Sergeant Kevin Hardie, 30, who once played for Basingstoke Rugby Football Club. All four were from 7 Squadron and were on a two-month detachment to Northern Ireland.

One year later, an RAF Board of Inquiry, after a review of evidence by two Air Marshals, found the two pilots guilty of “gross negligence”, for flying too fast and too low in thick fog.

That verdict remains the official line, despite years of campaigning by the families of the pilots and politicians, including North East Hampshire MP James Arbuthnot.

The campaigners have based their case on the fact that so much evidence to the contrary exists to make the “gross negligence” verdict unsafe and unfair.

Mr Arbuthnot, whose constituency includes RAF Odiham, has told The Gazette that the verdict should not stand after new evidence has come to light, casting doubt over the safety of computer software on the Chinook.

He said: “On the basis of what has since come to light, including papers, simulators and subsequent inquiries, it is completely obvious that the Ministry of Defence is just battening down the hatches, putting its fingers in its ears and is hoping everyone will go away.

“Well, not everyone will go away and this injustice in time will be righted.”

Campaigners argue there is not enough evidence to blame the pilots. They say nobody witnessed the crash on the western coast of Scotland, and the aircraft was not fitted with cockpit voice recorders or accident data recorders.

They also say that problems with the aircraft, which had recently undergone software improvements, could be to blame for the crash, and evidence that has since come to light seems to support that view.

Last year, The Daily Telegraph published a report by the commanding officer of the Rotary Wing Test Squadron, who was responsible for testing fixed-wing aircraft in the military at the time of the crash.

The report, written by coincidence on the day of the crash, recommended “in the strongest possible terms” that the Chinooks, like the one flown by Flt Lts Cook and Tapper, be grounded due to mechanical problems relating to flight systems.

Another report, published a couple of weeks ago, showed how an engineering officer at Boscombe Down – an RAF base in Wiltshire used by the MoD to test aircraft – had concerns about the Chinook’s engine software. He described one of the 174 anomalies found as “positively dangerous”.

However, the Government has consistently rejected the calls of the campaigners, claiming that any evidence that has since come to light was available to the original RAF Board of Inquiry.

Last year, the then Defence Secretary John Hutton met campaign leaders. It is understood that he told them the original finding would stand after a review of the case revealed no new evidence had been uncovered.