HC Deb 09 November 1967 vol 753 cc1402-12

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Varley.]

11.29 p.m.

Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee (Wokingham)

I am obliged to Mr. Speaker for giving me permission to raise on this occasion the question of the air accident on 6th February, 1958, and subsequent inquiries into it, and I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman the Minister of State at the Board of Trade for his courtesy in being here at this late hour to answer the debate.

The matters of which I speak derive from the events at Munich airport on 6th February, 1958, which is coming up to, 10 years ago now. They centred round a B.E.A. Elizabethan aircraft on charter flight, flying from Belgrade and coming into Munich airport, with a crew of six and 38 passengers, a significant number of whom were members of the Manchester United football team. There were two abandoned take-offs by the aircraft that afternoon, and on the third attempt to get off the ground, the aircraft failed to become airborne. Twenty-one people were killed instantly, two died later in hospital, and the remainder were injured, many of them seriously.

As is the usual practice on such occasions, the inquiry into the accident was carried out by the country of origin, that is, the country within which it took place, and the report of that inquiry, carried out in the normal way, was available publicly on 31st January, 1959. In the time available, I can do no more than summarise a highly complicated report. It found that the principal cause of the accident was ice on the wings of the aircraft and that responsibility for this lay on the captain, Captain Thain. Truncating the history thereafter, Captain Thain was sacked by B.E.A., and, apparently, there the matter ended.

However, that first German inquiry into the accident started what has probably been one of the greatest controversies of its kind in the history of air accidents, for consistently throughout the first inquiry and thereafter Captain Thain maintained that the principal cause of the accident was not what the German inquiry maintained it to be but was the presence of slush on the runway and the effect of that slush on his aircraft's takeoff. Increasingly, through the years, technical opinion has come to feel that there were very serious reasons for supposing that he might well be right.

Her Majesty's Government carried out their own tests through the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. This was done during the period which has elapsed since 1959. Extensive tests were made at Farnborough, to the point when, in July, 1964, as a result of representations and pressures, the Government sent to the Minister of Transport of the Federal German Government a detailed and highly documented report on the tests which had been carried out at Farnborough on the effects of slush on the take-off performance of aircraft. As a result of this, quite exceptionally and most unusually, a second inquiry into the accident was set up by the German authorities, reopening the inquiry to which I have already referred.

That second inquiry has now reported. The Minister has made the report, which comes from the German Federal Office of Aviation, publicly available. Again, to summarise a highly technical document, the German authorities maintain firmly that the principal cause of the accident was ice on the wings. But the most significant feature, perhaps, of the report is that, in addition to the report of the German inquiry, there are made available within it the technical findings from Farnborough to which I have referred. There they are for all to see, placed alongside and given equal prominence with the findings of the second German inquiry, a fact which many will feel speaks for itself.

In the short time at my disposal I hope to persuade the Minister that the findings of the two inquiries taken together are unjustified, and that the investigation is seriously unsatisfactory. I use those words deliberately, and he will recognise them. They come from the Cairns Report on accident investigation procedure, the recommendations of which are that where those conditions apply the report of the accredited representative of a country to an inquiry should be made public.

I understand the confidential nature of the accredited representative's task at any inquiry. I fully understand that in the normal course of events it might be highly inconvenient and prejudicial to the confidentiality of some of the inquiries if, as a matter of course, the accredited representative's report were made public. But Cairns recognises that there may be some few circumstances where that is justified, and my plea to the Minister is that this is one case where those conditions apply.

The Minister will understand that I cannot carry him through the various questionings and inadequacies of the technical evidence available. Therefore, I shall pick only one. I hope that he will understand that I am merely giving it by way of example, and am not resting my whole case on it.

One would feel that one of the most important set of witnesses of an accident of this kind would be the air traffic control officers. Yet the evidence is clear and incontrovertible that at the first German inquiry no statements were made by air traffic control officers. They are men of crucial importance. There had been two abandoned take-off attempts, and by the nature of their duty the air traffic control officers were alerted to the possibility of something going wrong. The evidence of at least some of them is that they were watching the 'plane through binoculars. Yet the existence of the first two by name—Lass and Gentsch —came to light only by chance, when reference to two excerpts from statements by those two air traffic control officers was found in the papers when the evidence was available after the first German inquiry. They had made their statements within 48 hours of the accident. One would have thought that they were crucially important, and yet they were never called.

The Minister may well say that he accepts that criticism about the first inquiry, but may then ask, "What about the second inquiry?" He will find that they never gave verbal evidence at the second inquiry, that there was never an opportunity to question or cross-examine them, and that it was at the second German inquiry that the existence of two further air traffic control officers came to light.

This shows a very grave gap in the evidence. There has been no opportunity for questioning these men at either inquiry, although their evidence is immensely important. They have now been questioned. They had been alerted to what was happening, they had watched the aircraft going down the runway and they were able and trained to observe these technical matters. All four agreed that in the second half of the attempted take-off the nose wheel was brought back on to the runway. That is absolutely consistent with the presence of slush and its being the principal cause of the failure to take off.

Through the initiative of the captain of the aircraft—Captain Thain, who is my constituent—these additional statements, or certainly some of them, are available. The documents which I have with me, the work of Captain O'Sullivan and Captain Thain, have been put together in a careful and readable form and have not, as far as I know, been seen by the Minister.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu)

indicated assent.

Mr. van Strauhenzee

I am glad to have the Minister's confirmation on that point.

I appreciate that, in response to a short debate like this, it is not reasonable for me to ask the Minister to give a firm commitment to reopen the inquiry and publish the report of his accredited representative. However, I have surely been able, taking one example only, to show how highly unsatisfactory was the technical evidence presented to the two inquiries—the gaps and the inability to question on technical matters—and therefore am able to ask the Minister to undertake to examine this evidence and keep the door ajar until he has had a chance, on technical advice, of considering what is needed.

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has certain anxieties. In reply to a Question on 25th October, he said that it was impossible, nearly 10 years later, to decide how much slush there was on the runway and that, if this was so, it was pointless to seek to reopen the inquiry. I am pressing the hon. Gentleman tonight on three grounds: first, on the evidence of the air traffic control officers which, to a non-technical person like myself, seems to be absolutely central to the whole question of what happened; secondly, on the fact that the evidence of both inquiries is on tape—it can be, and in one case has been, transcribed—so that all the evidence of the time is available to any fresh inquiry; and thirdly—perhaps most important of all—on the fact that we now know a great deal more technically about slush than we knew in 1958.

I am seeking to represent that a serious doubt exists. This is, therefore, exactly the sort of situation envisaged by the Cairns Report. This entitles me to ask that the report of the Minister's accredited representative should be published. I hope, in view of the courteous letter which the Minister wrote openly to me today, that he will not take refuge behind the possibility that one report does not exist, for he will agree that so skilled a technician as his accredited representative could extract a report from his papers extending right over the period of time involved.

On a personal note, I appreciate that we are discussing the whole question of accident procedure. I well understand the seriousness of the request I am making because of the way in which it might react on a friendly country. I realise, too, that we are discussing something which affects a great many people. I have seen this for nearly 10 years on a much more personal basis. My predecessor in the House, Mr. Peter Remnant, was really the man responsible initially for raising this matter. He was a model of a really skilled and keen constituency hon. Member.

I took over in 1959 and, since then, I have seen at close quarters the strain that has fallen on the man who was the captain of the aircraft concerned. He feels—and is joined by the increasing weight of technical evidence; the evidence of people who fly and who know much more about this than I do—a deep sense of having been wrongly convicted and that justice requires a totally impartial British inquiry and the publication of the technical reports. Anyone who has been close to that would feel that this was a matter he would feel very strongly about indeed. It is for these reasons that I am grateful to have been allowed to raise this matter tonight.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. F. V. Corfield (Gloucestershire, South)

I, too, have read the document, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) has referred, which has been prepared so painstakingly by Captains O'Sullivan and Thain. I have no doubt, having done so, that there are some very grave question-marks over the validity of the findings of the German Commission. My hon. Friend has given some examples. They are not exhaustive, and he does not pretend that they are. They could not have been in the time available.

I believe that the training of our pilots and the degree of skill they reach is second to none in the world, but if that situation is to continue it is vital that they should have confidence in these procedures, wherever accidents may occur.

I do not wish to carry on any form of vendetta against the West Germans or anyone else, but the Board of Trade has a responsibility in this matter and a duty. At the moment, it seems that we almost have the worst of all possible worlds. By adding the report of the R.A.E. to the translation of the German report, the Board of Trade appears to be supporting the criticism of the German findings without coming out firmly and making it clear that it is determined to reopen the matter and unravel the inconsistencies now apparent to everyone.

I underline my hon. Friend's request that the Minister should undertake to carry out a full and fair investigation and at last unravel the truth. This seems to be the very least owed not merely to Captain Thain, but to all our pilots to whom this inevitably means an enormous amount if they are to retain the high morale and skill that they have.

I agree with my hon. Friend that it would be unreasonable to ask the Minister to give a final answer tonight but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will make it clear that he will join us in meeting on another occasion, when time is not so valuable, so that the whole matter may be finally unravelled and the truth finally disclosed.

11.48 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu)

I am extremely grateful for what I may perhaps be allowed to call the very responsible way in which the hon. Member for Woking-ham (Mr. van Straubenzee) has put his case. This accident all these years ago was a particularly tragic one, as it happens, to me, and I am as much interested as anyone else in trying to find out just what the cause of it was—not in apportioning blame but in finding out the cause.

As the hon. Member rightly said, since that awful night in 1958, there have been a whole series of investigations into what happened. There was the first report of the German Commission which came out in January, 1959. That first inquiry was reopened after representations by Captain Thain about the possible effects of fire extinguisher materials in producing ice and a supplementary report was published in March 1960.

Then, again after representations by Captain Thain and others, we had the report of the Fay Committee, which was not dealing with the full cause of the accident but with certain aspects of the performance of his duty by Captain Thain. Subsequently a whole series of tests on the effects of slush were carried out by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. As a result of the Farnborough memorandum, the German inquiry was reopened for a second time, with a new chairman and with two new assessors out of three. We had the report of hat in August, 1966. Finally, because there were several seemingly obvious inconsistencies in the report, we had a meeting between German and British experts in June of this year.

The hon. Member for Wokingham, like his hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield), while accepting these investigations, has made some pointed criticisms of the procedure at the German inquiries. He has not had time to run through all the possible criticisms that could be made, but he has especially concentrated upon the fact that neither Captain Thain nor anyone else had the chance to examine the air traffic controllers who were on duty at the time of the accident.

These air traffic controllers had given written evidence from the start, but they were not examined orally, in public at any rate. These are sharp criticisms of German procedure, but as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, Annexe 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation lays down two things especially. The first is that the investigation of an accident is the responsibility of the State in which the accident occurs, and secondly, that the State in which the accident occurs has the right to conduct inquiries in accordance with its normal procedures.

Under German procedure, as I understand it, both oral and documentary evidence is considered. There is no obligation on the court to allow oral examination of witnesses who have presented written evidence. I am advised that in Germany this is entirely for the court to decide. In this instance the Commission considered, and at the request of our accredited representative, reconsidered, the written evidence of the air traffic control officers, but did not believe that matters would be carried further by examining them orally.

It is obvious to me, and the whole House, that this procedure is very different from our own, but it is clear that, none the less, the procedure is in conformity with Annexe 13 of the Convention. So long as we adhere to that Convention, we have no more right to object to German procedures than they have the right, in similar circumstances, to object to our own.

What we have a right and a duty to do is to press as hard as we can as a Government through I.C.A.O. for an improvement in the international rules of accident investigation and, by discussion with all countries which adhere to the international convention, to try to see that whatever things seem to us to be wrong, in our own procedures or anybody else's, are speedily put right.

The hon. Member and his hon. Friend have both pressed me to publish the report to the Chief Inspector by our accredited representative and I was asked whether I would be willing to consider reopening an inquiry. Both hon. Members referred to a document which I have not seen and which the Board of Trade has not seen. I give the hon. Member the assurance straight away that if he will let me have that document—we have been trying to get hold of it during the last week—it will be very carefully studied; but I cannot possibly give any further assurance than that.

Mr. Corfield

I fully accept that Annex 13 does what the hon. Gentleman says it does, but what it does not do is give the exclusive right to the country in which the accident occurs. I suggest that it cannot preclude us from our duty of seeing that where a British citizen appears to suffer injustice, he should be given the opportunity to clear himself.

Mr. Mallalieu

I take the point, but I must say, not having read the document or knowing its contents, that at this moment of time, and despite the existence of the tapes, I feel that it would be extraordinarily difficult to elicit any new facts or to come much nearer than have the previous inquiries to establishing what really was the truth about the accident.

What we have done, as the hon. Member rightly said, by publishing the Farnborough memorandum is to show that a body of acknowledged expert opinion believes that the conclusion drawn by the German inquiry—that wing ice was an essential cause of the accident—was not necessarily right and that, indeed, there is a strong alternative conclusion that slush alone could have caused the accident.

In the last minute or so, I want to say a word about Captain Thain. He was told long ago—and I have repeated this in the House—that if he applied for a renewal of his licence if he wished to do so, he would get it subject to medical, technical and flying qualifications. There is no question of his being banned from flying if he wants to resume.

Captain Thain's persistence in this matter, and the persistence of Mrs. Thain, has given greater urgency than there would otherwise have been to investigation into the slush drag problems. Although that may not be a great deal of consolation to him, he will at least understand that by his persistence he has benefited people throughout the world of civil aviation.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at one minute to Twelve o'clock.