The brother of a Shropshire man who was killed when an RAF Nimrod aircraft exploded soon after refuelling in Afghanistan has welcomed government plans to create a new independent body to regulate military air worthiness.

Sergeant Gerard Bell and 13 other services personnel were killed when the plane blew up over Kandahar. A probe into the plane’s maintenance is under way.

Two serving RAF officers are being investigated by military police over alleged maintenance failings which led to the tragedy in 2006.

Yesterday, defence secretary Bob Ainsworth said he was creating a new independent Military Aviation Authority to regulate air activities. The body will be headed by a three star military officer, have some 250 staff, and start work in April.

Michael Bell, brother of Sergeant Bell who was formerly of Brookside, Telford, said he was pleased by the move to create the new regulation body.

“I very much welcome the creation of the new body, but I do not think it would have prevented the tragedy which killed my brother,” he said.

He revealed that his family would not be continuing their campaign to see further action taken over the crash.

He said: “I don’t think the creation of the air worthiness body would have saved my brother’s life.

“It is too little too late although I very much welcome the news,” added Mr Bell, who lives in Newport.

Mr Ainsworth’s statement to MPs came after an independent report by Charles Haddon-Cave QC strongly criticised the Ministry of Defence, 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.

Mr Ainsworth told the Commons yesterday: “The Nimrod XV230 was lost as a result of a number of failings in the MoD and industry over a period of some three decades.

“Opportunities to discover and avoid the dangers, particularly during development of the safety case, were missed.

“In part this was due to specific errors.

“It was also because MoD’s aviation safety processes had become too cumbersome, complex and lacking in transparency and accountability.”

By Brett Gibbons