§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what conclusion investigators reached about the possibility of an unforeseen technical malfunction that would not have left any physical evidence as having occurred in the final flight of RAF Chinook ZD576 on 2 June 1994. [108759]
§ Mr. SpellarThe initial stage of the Board of Inquiry acknowledged that an unforeseen technical malfunction, which would not necessarily have left any physical evidence, was a possibility and could not be discounted. They concluded however that technical failure was unlikely to have been the direct cause of the accident, although they considered it possible that a technical malfunction or indication could have provided a distraction to the crew.
None the less, after careful consideration of all the available evidence the RAF Board of Inquiry concluded that the most probable cause of the accident was that the crew selected an inappropriate rate of climb to safely overfly the Mull of Kintyre, and the actions of the crew were thus held to be the direct cause of the crash.