Wife of Chinook crash victim calls for 'honesty' from British state 32 years after husband died
Shan Gregory-Smith has made an emotional appeal for answers surrounding her husband’s death
The wife of a victim of the 1994 RAF Chinook crash over the Mull of Kintyre has called for “honesty, transparency and basic decency from the state” after spending 32 years wondering how her husband died.
Shan Gregory-Smith, from Surrey, whose husband Richard, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Intelligence Corps and commanding officer in Northern Ireland, was killed in the crash, has spoken publicly about the impact of the crash for the first time following a “highly emotional” meeting with Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones MP .
The meeting was held as families of victims up the pressure on the UK government for a public inquiry into the crash , which killed 29 people, including the four-strong crew plus personnel from MI5, the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Victims have also put in a formal complaint to the Ministry of Defence following recent media statements that the crash was a “tragic accident” and claims that previous inquiries have considered all the circumstances surrounding the crash.
The Chinook Justice Campaign has highlighted a collection of documents gathered by David Hill, who died in January, who acted as the technical and legal advisor to families. Among them are official papers which raise doubt over the air worthiness of the helicopter that crashed.
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Mrs Gregory-Smith said: In a democracy in the 21st Century, this should have been resolved long ago.
“We need honesty, transparency and basic decency from the state. Our loved ones were loyal public servants. That loyalty has never been returned to us.
“For more than 30 years we have simply been asking for the truth. That is what any bereaved family deserves.
“You need to understand why someone has died to begin to come to terms with it. That has been denied to us for decades.
“I am now in my seventies. Would you want to wait 32 years to understand why your loved one died?”
Ms Davies-Jones has now pledged to raise the concerns of families directly with the Prime Minister.
The commitments come after the families filed a formal complaint with the MoD – and set out in detail the human impact of the disaster and its aftermath, including what they describe as years of unanswered questions and lack of transparency.
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On June 2, 1994, the RAF Chinook ZD576 crashed into a hillside in foggy conditions during the flight from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Fort George near Inverness, for a conference believed to be about the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The two pilots, flight lieutenants Richard Cook and Jonathan Tapper, were initially wrongly accused of gross negligence - the equivalent of manslaughter - after the crash.
But a subsequent review by Lord Philip set out “numerous concerns” raised by those who worked on the Chinooks, with the MoD’s testing centre at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire declaring the Chinook Mk2 helicopters “unairworthy” prior to the crash.
During the meeting, families also highlighted that more than 30 years on, hundreds of questions about the crash remain unanswered, and that official files relating to the disaster are sealed for 100 years.
The families, supported by Sorcha Eastwood MP, said the Chinook case should be among the first to which the Hillsborough Law is applied, arguing it is exactly the kind of injustice the duty of candour - which asserts public officials act with honesty and integrity at all times - was designed to address.
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