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Response to RAF crash due
Wednesday 16th December 2009, 11:10AM GMT.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth was today due to deliver the Government’s formal response to a report that criticised the RAF over a crash in Afghanistan that killed a Shropshire man and 13 other British service personnel.
Sergeant Gerard Bell, formerly of Brookside, Telford, was among the dead when a Nimrod MR2 plane blew up in mid-air above Kandahar minutes after refuelling in September 2006.
It was the biggest single loss of life for UK forces since the Falklands War and a 22-month report authored by Mr Charles Haddon-Cave released earlier this year concluded the incident was “preventable”.
The report strongly criticised the Ministry of Defence (MoD), BAE Systems and QinetiQ.
Mr Haddon-Cave concluded it was a preventable accident and said a safety review of the ageing Nimrod fleet completed a year earlier had been a “lamentable job” that was “riddled with errors” and failed to identify serious design flaws which led to the crash. The report also found safety was sacrificed for cost-cutting within the MoD.
Graham Knight, whose son Sergeant Ben Knight was among those killed, has demanded criminal prosecutions after the investigation named individuals who may have committed offences.
Yesterday Mr Ainsworth announced that Nimrod MR2 planes will be taken out of service a year early, to cut costs.
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