Chinook crash families say defence ministers have ‘deigned to meet us’

The families of those who died in the 1994 RAF Chinook helicopter crash have said they hope they are “getting somewhere” after defence ministers agreed to meet with them.

Twenty-five intelligence experts and four special forces crew were killed when the helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre, en route from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Fort George near Inverness, on June 2 that year.

The incident was initially blamed on pilot error before this was overturned in 2011.

Relatives of those killed are calling for answers about the crash and are seeking a meeting with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in person, having delivered a handwritten letter to Downing Street last month.

Families of the victims have said they will “see the UK Government in court” after the Prime Minister rejected calls for a judge-led inquiry.

On Friday they said three ministers in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – Lord Coaker, Al Carns, and Louise Sandher-Jones – as well as victims minister Alex Davies-Jones have now agreed to meet them on Tuesday December 16 at the MoD.

Nicola Rawcliffe, whose brother Chris was one of the victims, said: “The actions of the MoD and the Government continue, daily, to cause not just emotional and psychological distress but intellectual distress as well.

“So far, they have made out that we families are stupid and should go away. All of this adds to the ambiguous nature of our loss and is an unacceptable abuse of power from a Government committed to candour.

“Perhaps now they have deigned to meet us – not just one minister but four of them – we are getting somewhere. We will see.”

The move comes as two experts said the relatives of the victims are living with a unique form of unresolved grief – described by US family psychologist Dr Pauline Boss as “ambiguous loss”.

She said: “There is no such thing as closure. We have to live with loss, clear or ambiguous. So, clarity is the goal. But with ambiguous loss, people feel their power has been taken away because there are unanswered questions.

“One of the ways to deal with ambiguous loss is to give survivors as much information as possible. If there’s no meaning to what’s happened, then people are frozen. These families are stuck, and that’s a terrible place to be.”

A paper written for the Chinook Justice Campaign by social scientist Dr Simon Robins, a research adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross and an expert in ambiguous loss, states: “The search for truth – ongoing despite the pilots being formally cleared in 2011 – has meant that families live with contradictory realities: their loved ones are gone, yet the truth about what happened remains contested and incomplete.

“This lack of recognition, and apparent dismissal of the loss of the families, prolongs suffering, complicating efforts to reconcile emotions with reality.”

The Chinook Justice Campaign has launched a petition which has been signed by more than 51,000 people calling for a public inquiry.

The MoD has been asked for comment.